


Nothing Finer

by ZebraWallpaper



Series: The Two Roads Diverged Series [4]
Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: M/M, Miscommunication, Romance, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-01-15 06:36:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 96,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1295107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZebraWallpaper/pseuds/ZebraWallpaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cory and Shawn find out that happily ever after isn't as easy as it sounds. Sequel to "Two Roads Diverged."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He's All Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This story is a sequel to my earlier story "Two Roads Diverged," so you do have to have read that one to understand what's going on in this one.

 

"I believe that when you find love, you have to hold onto it and cherish it. Because there is nothing finer, and it may never come again."  
-George Feeny, _Boy Meets World_

* * *

Cory Matthews looks adorable when he is sleeping.

Shawn watches him from the doorway, hardly daring to breathe because Cory is also a light sleeper and Shawn doesn't want to wake him. He admires the way the sunlight is hitting across his bare chest, making his skin look like it is glowing. Cory is wearing a pair of faded plaid pajama pants and nothing else-a sexy sight Shawn never gets tired of-and he is spread across as much of the mattress as he can take up, expressing a kind of confidence he doesn't always show in waking life. His curls are a mess and terribly overgrown (Cory seems perpetually in need of a haircut), and it takes everything in Shawn's power not to go over there and ruffle his fingers through them. Instead he holds his breath and takes note of Cory's dark eyelashes against his white skin, his funny nose, his mouth dropped lazily open, the way his ears stick out a little. He is a thing of beauty, Shawn thinks.  _And he is mine._

Smiling at this thought, Shawn heads on into the kitchen. It's just after seven, but he's been up for several hours already. A thought about a plot point awoke him and he couldn't get back to sleep after that. He's spent the morning typing away, but now it's getting close when Cory will wake up and Shawn wants to spend some time with him before he heads out to work.

In the kitchen, he sets up the coffee to brew for the second time that morning and starts rummaging around for something to make. His first choice is frozen waffles, but Cory's been on a tear about relying too much on processed foods, so he takes out the eggs instead. He makes a bit of a mess (he's glad Cory's not watching him; this would drive Cory crazy) but ends up with some passable fried eggs and bacon. He puts everything together on a tray and heads back to the bedroom.

Cory's sitting up and blinking when Shawn comes in. "Somebody order breakfast in bed?" Shawn asks him.

Cory smiles groggily and looks over the tray as Shawn lays it down in front of him.

"I made it from scratch," Shawn tells him.

"It's bacon and eggs."

"From scratch."

"How else would you make them?"

Shawn shrugs and helps himself to a sip of Cory's coffee. "You could have had Eggos. I can go pop some in the toaster if you'd rather. Never mind that I slaved over a hot stove so that you could have real bacon and eggs from scratch."

Cory takes a bite of bacon. "I've gotta start doing the shopping. We need to eat healthier." Then he points the remainder of the bacon strip at Shawn and asks him, "Did you eat?"

Shawn's instinct is to ignore this question because he hates that Cory still feels he has to check in on him, but he also recognizes that it's coming from a good place, so he replies evenly, "Yes. I had a banana and a bowl of oatmeal."

"That processed instant stuff?"

"Sorry I didn't fire up a cauldron of steel cut oats and milk a cow. I was kinda trying to work."

"How'd that go?" Cory drags a piece of toast through his egg yolk, "Get a lot written?"

"A bit." He takes another sip of Cory's coffee and nods toward his plate. "I should have made you hash browns to go with that. Don't know why I didn't think of that."

"It's okay. God knows I don't need any more grease."

"We were out of kale and wheat germ," Shawn grumbles and lays back across the foot of the bed. He hates this healthy eating kick Cory's been on lately. Ever since he saw the photos Shawn took of him on the beach this summer, he's been going on about how he needs to start eating better and working out. Just talking about it, though, not actually doing anything about it, which Shawn's finding increasingly annoying. Shawn also thinks that Cory looks just fine the way he is. He hates that Cory beats up on himself like that. And those pictures from the beach are some of Shawn's favorites he's ever taken, Cory captured looking gorgeous and relaxed and happy.

"Thanks for making me breakfast," Cory says as he finishes up and starts stacking everything back on the tray, "That was sweet."

Shawn shrugs but since he's laying down it isn't really perceptible. Cory moves the tray to the floor and then leans over Shawn, looking him in the face. "Thank you," he says and kisses him.

"Do you have any idea how fucking sexy you are when you're sleeping?" Shawn asks him, calmly admiring how Cory's dark eyes are a much more complex mixture of lighter and darker browns in the sunlight than they appear to be most of the time.

"I'm sexy when I'm awake too."

"Nah. You're just wholesome and friendly."

Cory laughs. "Screw you."

"Not that wholesome and friendly aren't sexy," Shawn adds, reaching up to touch Cory's chest. This is always the first part of him he wants to touch, "It's just a different brand of sexy."

Cory moves out of his reach and climbs up from the bed. "I better get ready. I've got so much work waiting for me."

Shawn sighs in disappointment. "I never see you anymore."

Cory starts opening drawers, pulling out clean clothes for the day. "Meet me for lunch."

"Eh."

"Come on. What good is working from home if you can't duck out to meet your boyfriend for lunch?"

Even after all these months it's still a little thrilling and a little weird to hear Cory refer to himself as Shawn's boyfriend. The term feels simultaneously inadequate and overly romantic to describe their relationship. "Maybe," Shawn says, "If I get a little more written. I'll text you. You need help getting undressed?"

"I think I can handle pulling off my pajama pants."

"I don't know. That elastic can be tricky."

Cory just throws him an amused look and heads into the bathroom.

* * *

Cory checks his email on his phone while riding the subway to work. There's new emails from his lawyer, from Topanga, from her lawyer. It's been almost nine months since they separated but the divorce proceedings are still dragging on. Despite the fact that it's not acrimonious, that neither is seeking fault or alimony, there's still so much to untangle. They own real estate together, cars, investment plans, savings accounts...Cory would happily give up all claim to any of it just to have this process over with and be able to move on with his life, but Topanga is determined that things must be done as fairly as possible (even her divorce must be an over-achiever's divorce) and so it drags on, every last detail hashed out over polite emails and reams of paperwork and many, many billable hours. Cory skims the emails, sends replies. Then he gets a text notification and happily closes out his email app.

The text is a photo from Shawn. He's snapped a picture of his toe poking through the top of his sock. The same sock Cory's been on him for weeks to toss out because it's full of holes. But for reasons neither of them fully understands, Shawn has continued to wear the sock. Cory laughs at the photo and feels warm with affection.

He sits back in his seat and marvels, not for the first time, at how easy things have been since the initial drama of making this life change. He'd stayed on in New York with Shawn, sent out a very brief email to his family formally informing them of the situation (after counting on Amy Matthews to break the news informally first), and then settled into the business of building his new life. He took the job with Shawn's friend Tom, had Topanga ship him all his clothes, updated his address and then...that was it. A new life, just like that. It actually felt a little too quick and easy and Cory has found himself constantly waiting for some other shoe to drop. So far, though, it hasn't.

The whole sexuality thing had gone more smoothly than one would think. The labels were weird-identifying yourself as one thing, then having to identify yourself as something else-that was a little awkward, admittedly. Cory sometimes forgot he was supposed to be "gay" now and that a whole slew of political and cultural identity issues came with this. His feelings hadn't changed-he'd always been attracted to men and though he'd been denying it publicly for his adult life, he'd accepted it as the truth in private for many years now-but his label had changed. Now his label acknowledged publicly what it hadn't before. But Cory didn't think about the label much in his day to day life. It was easy to forget, living in New York where no one batted an eye and where everyone only knew him under this new label. Going back to Philadelphia was a little more strange, if only because people were familiar with his old label. But to Cory's mind, this was all a lot easier than it might have been. Maybe because he'd been mistaken for gay for so long. It was something people had always assumed about him upon first meeting him, the same way people also seemed to assume that he was far more religious or conservative than he actually was. For whatever reason, these were labels people always seemed to think suited him. And now, on one count at least, they were right. Cory found that he actually spent less time correcting people these days.

As far as Shawn was concerned, the labels were fairly irrelevant. Shawn had occupied some space between the boundaries of the labels for as long as Cory could remember. Even in high school, Cory could recall being slightly unnerved at how Shawn would flirt with male waiters to get them better service or accept attentions from strange men in public places without getting bent out of shape about it. He was careful, of course, at school and at home, to only pursue his reputation as a ladies man-he had no interest in making life any more difficult for himself at that point. Cory would later find out, though, that Shawn had certainly explored his options on the down-low during this period. He pursued this exploration further in college; it was largely the impetus behind his break-up with Angela following student orientation Freshman year, but Shawn quickly realized that he had little interest in giving up one sex to be exclusive to the other. He liked both sexes and was only invested in exclusivity on a person by person basis. Once he got to New York, Shawn had finally felt free to drop all pretenses of being strictly "straight." He slept around with men and women indiscriminately and everyone he came to know in the city was only acquainted with him as operating within this space of fluid sexuality; they accepted it without question because they'd never known him as anything else. Shawn was comfortable with this state of affairs and Cory, moving into Shawn's life, had found it surprisingly easy to slip into this casual way of thinking about things.

It's easy to slip into Shawn's way of thinking about everything, really. That's his charisma at work and it is part of what Cory loves about him. But it's also not always a good thing, to Cory's mind. He's picking up some of Shawn's bad habits, he's noticed. Like leaving stuff out instead of putting it away, drinking out of other people's glasses without asking (Cory's only caught himself doing this with Shawn so far, thank goodness), or eating like he's an eleven-year-old boy. This last one's really starting to bother him. Shawn's metabolism can take that, but Cory's can't. And Cory already feels self-conscious about just being average-looking. He's noticed the way men and women alike check Shawn out when they go out to shops and bars. He knows that Shawn is an attractive guy and could have his pick of other equally attractive people to sleep with. When Cory looks in the mirror at his stupid hair, his goofy features, or sees his belly in those awful pictures from the beach, he feels like he's letting Shawn down. Sometimes he lies awake at night, watching Shawn sleep and wondering how long it will be before Shawn tires of him and leaves him for someone better looking and cooler, more hip or fun or whatever.

But now he's at his stop, so Cory pushes away such thoughts as he rises, heads out, and starts thinking about all the projects that are awaiting him in the office.

Work is going well, for the most part. Cory loved almost every aspect of the little editing job he'd started with and discovered he had a real aptitude for the software and a good feel for editing in general. Recently, he's been promoted so that now he's working directly with Tom, Shawn's friend and former lover who got Cory the initial job. Cory's happy about the promotion and the job in general, glad to be doing work that he finds interesting and challenging for the the first time in his adult life. He can't deny, though, that it's increasingly taking over his life. He goes in early, stays late on the regular and most nights takes projects home to work on. Also increasingly taking over his thoughts is Tom, with whom Cory spends the majority of his days working side by side in the dark little editing bay.

Being around Tom so much makes Cory a little nervous. He's a friendly guy but very good at what he does and this is intimidating. He's also an incredibly handsome man: tall and slender but muscular with perfectly tousled hair and a square jaw like a Calvin Klein model. Cory is torn between being incredibly attracted to Tom and being insanely jealous that Tom and Shawn had "fucked each other's brains out on the regular," as Shawn had put it once. But Tom is nice, too, and smart and funny, all of which make things more complicated. It's really hard to dislike him. He also seems to have taken to Cory and has done a lot to help him find his place at the company. Cory's grateful for this and, though he'd be loathe to admit to anyone, he's developed a bit of a crush on Tom. Cory's caught himself on more than one occasion fantasizing about Tom. But then they'll be chatting about something and Tom will stretch to reach some equipment off a shelf and Cory will look at his perfect body and picture him naked with Shawn. Picture him fucking Shawn. Picture Shawn fucking Tom. And then Cory becomes blind with jealousy and loses all ability to think about work again for at least the next hour. It's starting to be a real problem.

But he arrives into the office and Tom's not in yet and Cory takes a deep breath. He gets a cup of coffee, fires up his computer, and banishes all thoughts of Tom and Shawn and whatever happened before Cory came into the picture and whatever will probably happen once Shawn tires of him and kicks Cory back out of the picture. It's time to get some actual work done.

* * *

Shawn stares at the blinking cursor on his Word document. He's been staring at it for the last ten minutes but, still, nothing has happened. No words have magically appeared on the screen. It's been a shitty day for writing, a shitty week, really, and he doesn't know why. He thought he'd had a good idea this morning, but now it's starting feel like crap and he hasn't managed to write a damn word since Cory left for work. Annoyed, he closes the laptop and starts to wander the apartment.

In the old days, he would have gotten himself a drink, a little bit of whiskey or just a beer to loosen his frustration. But he's trying not to do that these days. He's trying to cut back on a lot of things he knows make Cory nervous, so instead he picks up a tennis ball that he keeps around just for this purpose and starts tossing it from one hand to the other as he paces.

Eventually, he ends up in Sadie's room. She only occupies the room every other weekend right now, but he and Cory have worked to make it feel like home for her. She picked out the particular shade of green paint and the purple polka dot bedding herself. The walls are covered with pictures of animals-the kid is obsessed with animals-and there is a growing collection of games and toys on the bookshelves. It's a cheerful place and Shawn often finds himself spending time in here during the day when no one else is home.

The latest item added to the room is a fish tank. Sadie hasn't seen it yet, and Shawn can hardly wait until she finds the surprise this weekend. His initial plan was to get her a puppy. She'd go nuts for a puppy and it would be something that would make coming to Manhattan much more special. Shawn also likes the idea because he knows Anna won't let Sadie have a dog at home. But Cory argued they weren't ready for the responsibility of a dog and seemed really uneasy about the whole thing, so Shawn abandoned the idea for the time being. Fish tank it is.

It's a nice little tank, he thinks, as he sits on the edge of the bed and watches it. The guy at the pet shop had recommended fancy guppies as they're easy to take care of, come in lots of colors, and are cheap enough to replace should one or two go belly up. So they'd bought a bag of guppies, a snail, and about $60 worth of aquarium supplies. In addition to all the tubes and aerators and pumps, there's a Spongebob Squarepants pineapple house for the guppies to swim through, some colorful coral, a plastic plant, and sparkly purple gravel. Shawn wasn't keen on the sparkly purple gravel, but Cory pointed out that the fish won't care but Sadie would like it so, of course, Shawn gave in. He is a sucker for anything Cory or Sadie want.

His phone dings then with a message notification. He checks it out, hoping it's from Cory who sometimes sends him dirty text messages when least expected (Cory Matthews is dirtier than anyone would have thought), but is disappointed to see that it's from Anna instead. Already irritated just by the sight of her name, he opens the message.

_We need to talk. Call you tonight?_

Shawn glares at the message. He thinks of about a dozen nasty replies he'd like to send but then takes a deep breath and writes back neutrally.

_That's fine. Call whenever you want._

After he sends it, he feels a great urge to throw his phone against the wall. But he doesn't. Instead he sends Cory a message.

_What time can you take lunch?_

Writing is shit, Anna is no doubt going to call bearing more shit, and he really wants a drink. Time to get the hell out of the house.

* * *

"Hey, you ready?"

Cory is startled from his concentration and bumps his knees into the bottom of his desk as he jumps. He grimaces, but when he realizes it's Shawn who's poking his head into the room, he quickly replaces that expression with a smile. "Hey! Sure. Just give me a minute."

"Okay." Shawn ducks back out of the room, presumably heading to the lobby.

Cory takes a minute to finish up what he's doing, save everything, then goes out to find him. Shawn never made it to the lobby, though. He ran into Tom who's talking to him now with, Cory notices with laser-like vision, a hand on Shawn's arm.

"Hey!" Cory shouts, plowing down the hall toward them, "I'm ready to go."

Tom drops his hand from Shawn's arm as he steps back. "You guys going to lunch?"

"Yep," Cory says, putting a hand on Shawn's chest protectively, "We're heading out. Right now." He gives Shawn a couple of pats on the chest, like he's a labrador retriever, or something, and ignores the puzzled look Shawn's giving him.

"Do you wanna join us?" Shawn asks Tom politely. Cory could kill him.

"Aw, thanks, but I've got a meeting. Another time."

"Sure," Cory says just a little too quickly, and starts to steer Shawn toward the door.

"It was nice to see you, Shawn," Tom calls after them.

"You too," Shawn calls back, forcibly removing Cory's hand from his shoulder. When they get outside Shawn drops his polite smile. "What the hell was that about?"

"Nothing. You wanna go to that diner you like?"

Shawn shrugs.  _Great_ , Cory thinks,  _Shawn's in a shitty mood_. They don't really talk as they make their way down the block to the diner and the trend continues even after they've ordered. It's not until half-way through his salad that Cory notices Shawn's playing with his hamburger instead of eating it and breaks the silence.

"What's wrong?"

Shawn looks up. "What do you mean?"

"You're not eating."

"I'm eating."

Cory gives him a look and Shawn reexamines his plate, realizes that he has, in fact, not actually eaten any of it. He picks up his hamburger and takes three bites in a row. "Sorry," he says with his mouth full.

"So, what's wrong?" Cory asks after Shawn's made some decent headway on his meal.

"I don't know. It's just been a crappy morning."

"Writing-wise?"

"Yeah. What'd you work on today?"

"I spent most of the morning on the Toyota one."

"The thing for the trade show?"

"Yeah. It's actually...I'm really happy with how it's coming out."

Shawn finally smiles. He always seems to like hearing Cory talk about work. Cory finds this encouraging and ends up babbling about the video for the rest of lunch. Shawn doesn't seem to mind. By the time they pay their check, he appears to be in a much better mood.

"Do you have to go back right away or can you take a little more time?" he asks Cory.

Cory checks his watch. "I have a little time. Why?"

"I gotta go shopping since Sadie's coming tomorrow. I thought you might want to come with and pick out some of the stuff you want. The healthy stuff."

Cory smiles and agrees, though inside he's cringing a little. Shawn always goes overboard buying groceries for Sadie's visits. Then the two grown men get stuck eating Go-gurt and string cheese and juice boxes for the next week after. It's a little ridiculous. But Cory doesn't complain about this. He's very careful not to say anything about the whole Sadie situation that could be construed as criticism because Shawn's so sensitive about it. And Shawn's trying so hard to be a good dad. It's actually quite touching. Cory doesn't want to do anything to disturb that.

At the grocery store Shawn fills his basket with the usual abundance of Sadie supplies while Cory seeks out some fresh vegetables and a good deal on chicken breasts. After filling his own basket with virtuous grown-up food, Cory wanders the aisles looking for Shawn again. He sees him at the far end of one aisle but then pauses. There's a very attractive woman standing not too far from Shawn, giving him a look that Cory recognizes. It's a look of lust and interest. She's about two seconds away from approaching him.

Cory hustles down the aisle and slips his arm around Shawn's waist. Shawn is surprised but accepts his kiss. "We should go," Cory informs him.

"Okay. Do you think she needs anything else?" Shawn holds out the very full basket for Cory's approval. Everything is covered with cartoon characters and colorful labels.

"She weighs about forty pounds. I think that'll be enough to sustain her for three days."

"I overdo it, don't I?"

"No, no never." He gives Shawn another kiss and steers him safely away from the woman and toward the register. They get through the check-out, then have to part ways once they leave the store, Shawn heading in one direction with the groceries, Cory heading in the other back to work.

"Are you all right?" Shawn asks him.

"Sure. Why?"

"You're acting...nervous, or something."

"Nope," Cory shakes his head too effusively, "Not nervous at all."

"Okay," Shawn says, obviously not quite believing him but not pushing it. "See you when you get home, then."

"Yeah," Cory gives him a quick peck, "I'll try not to be too late."

Shawn turns and starts walking back toward the subway, but then the attractive woman from the grocery store comes out and something possesses Cory to holler after Shawn, "I want you to suck my balls off tonight!"

Shawn freezes and then pivots back to face him. Even from a distance of several yards, Cory can see him blushing.

Cory gives him a stupid grin.

Shawn smiles back, hesitantly. "Okay, then!" he says, "I look forward to it!" Then, shaking his head, he turns around and marches off.

Cory watches him go, then exhales deeply. "What is wrong with me?" he whispers.

Back in the office, he runs almost smack into Tom in the editing bay.

"Oh, hey, sorry," Tom says, stepping back.

"It's okay," Cory mutters. He steps past him into the room and hangs his hoodie over the back of his chair. He throws himself into the chair but then turns to Tom. "Hey, Tom?"

"Yeah?"

"You work out, right?"

"Well," Tom kids flirtatiously, "Thank you for noticing."

"No, I mean, obviously you work out. Do you go to a gym around here?"

"Uh, yeah. About three blocks west of here, actually."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, it's a nice place. Why? You looking to join a gym?"

Cory nods.

"Well, that's cool," Tom says, "I think they give me a gift card, or something, if I refer a new member. Want me to get you some info?"

"That'd be great," Cory says, "I really need to start working out."

Tom gives him a knowing nod and sits down next to him. "Shawn, right? That'd drive me crazy too. It used to make me nuts when we'd go to parties. People just acted like I didn't even exist, practically jumping over me to get in his pants."

Cory is completely shocked by this turn in the conversation. He blinks a little too much and says the first thought that pops into his head which is, "But you look like an underwear model."

Tom laughs (he has a great laugh, Cory secretly loves it) and shakes his head. "Yeah, I don't know. He's got that charisma, man. I mean, you know it. It's crazy hot. People just fall over themselves for it."

"Yeah, I do," Cory agrees, feeling oddly comforted despite the awkwardness of this conversation. He hasn't really been able to talk to anybody about how it feels to actually be in a relationship with Shawn. "You should've tried going to high school with him," he says, "I think he hooked up with, like, seventy percent of our graduating class. Thank god I was still in the closet then so I couldn't take it personally."

Tom laughs again. "I don't know how you do it. It wasn't long before I couldn't take it anymore and decided we were better off as friends. But, then, I never saw Shawn as being the kind of guy to be in an exclusive relationship, or whatever, so what do I know?"

Cory realizes, rationally, that this statement was intended to make him feel better. It makes him feel far, far worse, however. He plasters on a smile for Tom, and then he turns to his computer, signaling the end of the conversation. He pulls up a bunch of screens but doesn't see any of them. His mind now somewhere else entirely.

* * *

Cory can always tell upon arriving home when Shawn has been in touch with Anna. He'll be tight-lipped and short-tempered all night, kicking things around, snapping at everything Cory says. Cory's general policy, as with all things related to Anna and Sadie, is to stay out of it. He'll let Shawn fume and slam cabinet doors and get it out of his system. Eventually, he'll crawl into bed all sweetness and apologies and, while playing with Cory's curls, tell him about something funny Sadie did on video chat. After six months of court battles and three months of the new shared custody arrangement, Cory has gotten quite used to this.

So when he gets home this evening and Shawn is throwing books across the office instead of just moving them, Cory already knows that something Anna-related has gone down. He tiptoes around Shawn while unpacking his things from work and changing into his pajamas. He waits for him to eventually calm down. It doesn't seem to be happening, though.

Finally, as Cory is peeling an orange in the kitchen, Shawn stomps in and throws himself onto one of the bar stools. "Sadie's not coming this weekend."

"Why? Is she sick?"

"Oh, no," Shawn says bitterly, "She's fine. But she got invited to a birthday party and Anna thinks it's important that she go."

"That's bullshit."

"I know. Like taking six years of Sadie away from me wasn't enough. Now she's gotta take my weekends."

"She can't do that. She's violating the terms. Call the lawyer."

"No," Shawn sighs and slumps over the counter, resting his chin on his arms, "I don't want to do that. I don't want everything to turn into calling the lawyer."

"Well, are you gonna get an extra weekend, then? Two in a row?"

"No. She's got a bunch of school and family things scheduled."

Cory watches Shawn for a minute and tries to decide how to proceed. He knows what Shawn should do (call the lawyer because this is bullshit, like Cory said), but Cory also feels like it's not his place to push it. And he can see defeat settling into Shawn's shoulders. All the anger is draining out of him and he's going to be exhausted soon. Who knows how long he's been raging about this before Cory got home.

"I'm sorry," Cory finally offers, "That sucks."

Shawn lays his head down and closes his eyes.

"Did you eat?" Cory asks.

"I'm not hungry."

Cory hands him the peeled orange and starts immediately pulling things out of the fridge and the pantry to throw together something decent for dinner. He does it as much to as a way to take care of Shawn as to cover up his own guilt at feeling slightly relieved that Sadie won't be coming this weekend.

It's not that Cory doesn't like having her around-Sadie's a great kid and Cory loves seeing the side of Shawn that comes out when he's with her-but Cory has to work so hard to stay out of the way when she's here. Shawn's had so little time with his daughter, only a handful of weekends, really, since the arrangement was formalized, that Cory's been consciously trying to give them as much time together one on one as possible. So Cory's mostly found reasons to go into work every weekend that she's been around and to stay late there, or to take the train into Philly to visit his parents. But it's tiring and Cory's always relieved once Sadie's back at her mother's house and Cory can relax in his own apartment again, even if Shawn's always melancholy for a good day or two after she leaves. Frankly, Cory's just tired of having his life disrupted every other week and putting up with the inevitable emotional turmoil the whole thing puts Shawn through. Maybe that's selfish, but it's how he feels.

After dinner, Shawn takes his sleeping pill and sulks on his side of the bed. Cory turns off the light and cuddles up next to him, wrapping his arms around him. He buries his face in the crook of Shawn's neck and inhales his scent.

"I've just missed so much already," Shawn says softly.

"I know," Cory keeps his face where it is, speaking into Shawn, "Did you feed the fish?"

"Shit." Shawn bolts out of bed and pads off the Sadie's room. When he returns a few minutes later and crawls back under the covers he laughs. "I'll be lucky if I can keep them alive another two weeks until she actually gets to see them."

"Don't worry," Cory tells him, re-wrapping him in his arms, "I'll be here to make sure there's no guppy genocide."

"I'm so glad you're here, Cor."

"Me too."

* * *

Shawn wakes up with his arms wrapped loosely around Cory. He lays there for a few seconds, remembering what day of the week it is, what happened the day before, his annoyance at Anna, his frustration with the writing, the heaviness in his heart he feels knowing he won't see Sadie for another two weeks. He presses his face between Cory's shoulder blades, feeling the soft cotton of his undershirt, the warm, reassuring presence of his body underneath it. He breathes it all in and out deeply for a while.

Then his hand finds its way around Cory's side, under his t-shirt. He presses into the comforting softness of his belly and then down to his hip and under the waistband of his boxers. Cory doesn't stir. Shawn makes his way to Cory's cock and wraps his hand around it. He holds it firmly, at first just enjoying the weight of it. Then, gradually, he begins to move his hand around a bit, squeeze and release, until Cory starts to grow hard.

He hears a slight hitch in Cory's breathing but keeps going. Sleepily, Cory curves his body toward Shawn's grip, encouraging him. Shawn keeps going, greatly enjoying the sound of Cory's hitching breath, the jerking of his chest, the mixture of pain and pleasure on his face, eyes still closed but now held tight on purpose. Shawn removes his hand briefly to spit in it, then he slips it back into Cory's shorts and resumes pulling him off. It happens quickly from there. After, Shawn pulls his hand out slowly, wipes it on the sheet and then lays back on his arm to watch Cory panting.

Cory Matthews is sexy as hell in the morning. And, Shawn thinks with satisfaction,  _H_ _e's all mine._


	2. A Terrible Idea

Out of the blue one evening Shawn suggests they invite Tom and his boyfriend over for dinner.

Cory catches himself just before he chokes on his water. He'd been doing quite a good job of not thinking about Tom all night before this. "Why?" he asks.

"Because he's your boss and he's my friend and we've never really thanked him for getting you that job. And we've got the new apartment, so it's a good excuse." Shawn gives him a strange look. "You don't want to?"

"No, no," Cory assures him, "That's fine. It makes sense."

"Everything all right with you guys?"

"Yeah. No, it's fine." Cory hops up from the table, deciding now is a good time to pick up the dinner dishes. "I'll ask him about it tomorrow."

Shawn watches him bring the dishes to the kitchen, then follows him with the glasses. As he helps Cory load the dishwasher, he asks, "Why do I feel like I've become a housewife?"

Cory laughs. "You kinda have."

"Setting up dinner parties and clipping coupons for Go-gurt? Who am I?"

"My mother would be so proud."

"Jesus." Shawn wipes his hands on a dishtowel and as he walks away Cory can hear him muttering, "I need to pick up a heroin habit or something..."

After Shawn has left the kitchen, Cory takes a minute to steady himself on the edge of the sink and to close his eyes. This thing with Tom will be fine. Cory just needs to stop making it into something it's not. He needs to stop obsessing. He needs to stop thinking about Tom with Shawn. He needs to stop think about being with Tom himself. He needs to stop thinking about Tom, period. Tom is his boss. Tom is nice. Tom is an attractive guy. That's it. Tom is also an attractive guy who used to sleep with Shawn, he reminds himself. They "fucked each other's brains out on the regular," he reminds himself. Tom and Shawn fucked long before Cory and Shawn ever fucked...

"God, stop it!" Cory snarls out loud to the empty kitchen. He slams the dishwasher closed and goes to find Shawn.

After checking a few other places, he locates Shawn in Sadie's room. He is sitting at the foot of the bed, watching the guppies. Cory takes a seat beside him.

"It's getting a little green, isn't it?" Cory asks, staring at the algae in the fish tank.

"Yeah, I need to figure out how to clean it."

"I thought the snail would take care of that."

"Not so much, actually. I think if we get a plecostomous it'll help, but I still need to clean the tank regularly."

"Get a what?"

"Plecostomous. Those sucker fish that stick to the side of the glass and eat the algae. I've been...doing some research."

Cory lets this information sink in, then he asks, "Have you gotten  _any_  writing done lately?"

"Not really."

Cory puts his hand on Shawn's knee. The writing has not been going well for the past few months and he knows this worries Shawn a lot more than he lets on.

"You wanna go out?" Shawn asks. There's a hint of desperation in his voice.

"It's ten o'clock."

"Cory, we're twenty-nine year-olds, not eighty-nine-year-olds. We can go out past ten o'clock."

Cory really, really does not feel like going out, but he can feel Shawn's antsy-ness practically coursing through his leg muscles. "All right. Nothing too crazy, though, you promise? I gotta work in the morning."

"Oh, I love you, Cor," Shawn says, hopping to his feet and pulling Cory up after him, "Let's get the hell out of here."

* * *

Shawn is having a very good time playing pool. He is pleasantly buzzed, the music is great, and it just feels so damn nice to be out of the house at night, at his favorite bar, with Cory. It has been ages. He smiles as he leans against the wall and watches Cory preparing to take his shot. He's wearing one of Shawn's old sweaters, which Shawn loves to see. They always show off his nice shape a lot better than Cory's own clothes, especially his shoulders and his chest. Every time Cory wears stuff like that, Shawn just wants to jump his bones. Goddamn, his mind is wandering. He may be a little bit more than just buzzed.

Cory makes his shot and it's a lousy one, even by the standards at which Cory plays.

"All right," Cory says, moving lazily from the table, "Why don't you wrap this up so we can go home?"

"Are you losing on purpose?" Shawn frowns and takes his place at the table, "That's no fun."

"I always lose when we play."

"Yeah, but usually you lose better than this." Shawn finishes his whiskey and is considering whether or not to ask Cory if they should order another round when he spots his friend Charlie heading toward him. He hasn't seen Charlie in at least a year. "Holy shit!" Shawn yells with a grin, "Now, there's a man who can play some pool!"

"Shawn!" Charlie greets him with a fist-clasp that turns into a hug, "Long time no see, man. What you been up to?"

"Gettin' domesticated," Shawn laughs. Then he realizes that Cory's being left out. "Oh, hey, Charlie. This is Cory."

"Ah! The famous Cory!" Charlie shakes Cory's hand. Charlie is a big, muscular guy, about twice the size of Cory. Shawn finds it amusing to see them together.

"Charlie, we gotta play a game," Shawn says. He notices that Cory looks a bit dismayed but Shawn assures him, "Cor, you gotta see this guy play. He is unbelievable."

"Drinks on me," Charlie says, then points at the table, "Game's on you."

As Charlie heads off to the bar, Shawn leans over the table to finish off his game with Cory. He can do it in about two shots, he figures.

"Hey, what the hell, Shawn?" Cory asks just as Shawn's about to take his shot, "I thought we were going home."

Shawn stands up and sets his pool cue down. "We were?"

"I said I wanted to get home after this game." Cory looks pissed.

"I missed that," Shawn says quickly, "I'm sorry. But, really, Cory, you just gotta see him play. He's amazing. He's pretty much the best person I've played with since my dad died."

"I don't want to watch another game of pool while you get more drunk. I have to work in the morning. It's after midnight already."

"I'm not drunk," Shawn says, feeling very offended by this accusation, "Why're you being a dick?"

"I'm being a dick, Shawn?"

"Yeah. I just want to have a little fun for once before I go back there and have to play housewife again all week and listen to you bitch about how I don't buy the right food and how I don't know how to cook and how it's all my fault that you think you're turning into a fat-ass." As soon as he's done saying this, Shawn knows he shouldn't have, but he's annoyed enough that he chooses not to care. He's so tired of being in the apartment, getting nothing done.

Cory doesn't seem to react to what Shawn has said, at least not in the way Shawn expects him to. Instead of saying something cranky back or defending himself, he just asks calmly,"You want to stay here?"

"Yes. Yes, I want to stay here."

"Fine. Come home whenever you want. I'm going to bed." Cory grabs his jacket and walks out of the bar.

Shawn wants to call after him, but he doesn't. Instead he picks his pool cue back up and finishes off the game in the two shots he'd predicted. Then Charlie arrives with the drinks and it's easy to push thoughts of Cory away for a while. It doesn't feel good, exactly, but it's easy.

* * *

Shawn's not sure what time it is when he gets home. It takes him a few tries to get his key in the door, but then he makes it inside and does his best to be quiet. He wobbles on one foot then the other pulling off his boots and dropping them in the hallway. Then he trips over the boots on his way toward the bedroom.

"Shit," he says a little too loudly. He pauses to listen if he's woken Cory, but he doesn't hear anything so he continues on to the bedroom. When he gets there he crawls into bed with his clothes still on and scoots up next to Cory. Cory shoves him off.

"Hey," Shawn protests.

"You stink," Cory says.

"What?"

"You reek of whiskey. Go take a shower. Or sleep somewhere else."

"Cory..."

"Shawn, I have to get up in three hours. I need to sleep."

Full of self-loathing, his happiness from his time with Charlie all evaporated, Shawn gets back up and leaves the bedroom. He considers the sofa and the little two-seater in the office, but eventually he finds himself standing in Sadie's empty bedroom. He heads for the bed and then stops. He will not sleep in his daughter's bed reeking of whiskey, even if she's not here. Instead he lays down on the floor in front of the fish tank. He pulls off his shirt and balls it up to use as a pillow.

He lays there in the green glow of the aquarium and watches the guppies swimming. His last thought before he drifts off is to wonder if fish ever get tired of always having to be moving. He thinks it would be exhausting.

* * *

In the morning, Cory wakes up and the first thing he feels is guilt at the memory of having told Shawn to go away. Telling Shawn to go away is not like telling anyone else to go away. Telling Shawn to go away is akin to telling Shawn he is a worthless excuse for a human being and doesn't deserve to be loved. Cory groans and crawls out of bed to go look for him.

He finds him, unsurprisingly, in Sadie's room. Shawn just always seem to gravitate there these days. He looks especially pathetic this morning, shirtless and curled up on the floor.

Cory moves to wake him, get him up off the floor, but then he stops. He remembers Charlie from last night. Charlie with the biceps like Christmas hams. Charlie who was yet another one of Shawn's ridiculously attractive friends he'd probably slept with. Charlie who Shawn stayed out all last night with.

Cory leaves Shawn sleeping on the floor.

* * *

Cory's deep in concentration over some footage when Tom comes into the editing bay bearing a folder of brochures that feature happy, extremely fit people all over them performing a variety of gym activities.

"Think you can leave this for an hour or so?" Tom asks, nodding at the footage on screen, "I'll give you a tour of the place in person, see if it's up your alley."

Cory knows he really shouldn't leave work for an hour-it'll just mean he'll either be staying late to catch up or taking stuff home with him, but it's hard to say no to Tom. So they head out and it's nice to be out in the sunshine for a bit, just chatting as they walk. Cory really does like Tom. He's a funny guy and almost relentlessly cheerful. He also has a way of making you feel like everything you say is just the best thing he's ever heard. Cory wonders, not for the first time, why it was that Shawn and Tom only stayed together for such a short time. He's thought for a while that it was probably Shawn's issues with drugs that led to the end of that relationship. He's also thought for a while that, had Shawn not been such a mess during that period, he and Tom would probably still be together. This doesn't make Cory feel any less intimidated around Tom.

At the gym, this intimidation deepens. Tom is far more into this stuff than Cory realized. He walks Cory through the different rooms of equipment and amenities and goes on and on about various types of work-out regimes and their potential benefits relative to "a guy like you." What the hell is a guy like him? A slug, probably, Cory thinks, an out-of-shape loser who hasn't set foot in a gym since high school. Tom must look at Cory and think he is such a joke. For all his friendliness, Tom is probably just thinking it's a matter of time before Shawn also catches on to what a schlub Cory is. And then Tom and Shawn could be free to get together again. And fuck each other's brains out. On the regular.

"Look, it's not like you're starting out in a bad place," Tom says then, "You just gotta bring your A game. I mean, you waited, what? Twenty years to be with Shawn? The last thing you wanna do is lose him to some dope with great pecs."

Cory looks at Tom, notes his tight-fitting shirt, the outline underneath of his own great pecs, what are probably washboard abs, and whatever else a perfect guy is supposed to have. Cory tries to picture what he must look like compared to Tom, what Shawn must think of that. And then he thinks about that Charlie guy from last night, how attractive Cory found the guy's arms to be.

"Where do I sign up?" Cory asks and puts on what he hopes is a good approximation of an enthusiastic smile.

* * *

When Cory gets home that evening, Shawn's sipping on a juice box and video chatting with Sadie.

"It's Cory!" Shawn cheers with that great big smile that never fails to make Cory feel better about the world.

"Cory!" Sadie cheers from inside the laptop.

Cory sits down on the sofa and waves at her. It kills him that she has that exact same smile, absolutely kills him. "Hey, Sadie-Bradie. Whatcha guys talking about?"

"Panda bears."

Cory nods sagely. "That's a good topic."

This encourages Sadie and she babbles facts about panda bears for several minutes and describes in great detail a special she watched recently on the topic. While she talks, Shawn gently rubs his thumb over Cory's hand. Cory's not quite ready for total forgiveness about last night, though. He accepts the little bit of affection, but he offers nothing back.

"That's really cool," Cory says eventually when Sadie finally stops to take a breath, "I gotta go make your daddy dinner now, though. I'll see you later?"

"Okay! Bye, Cory!" Cory's pretty sure everything Sadie says always ends in an exclamation point. Ah, to be six again.

Later, as they eat dinner, neither of them says much, the specter of the previous evening still hanging over them. Shawn's playing with his food more than eating it, something he's been doing a lot again recently. This makes Cory uneasy. Shawn still hasn't fully managed to get himself back to where he should be health-wise since that bad period when he first found out about Sadie, and Cory dreads any hint that they might be heading back to another time like that. Still, he orders himself not to nag Shawn about it tonight. Now is definitely not the time.

"So, I asked Tom about coming over," Cory says finally, "Tomorrow night okay?"

"Sure. What's the guy he's seeing's name again?"

"Kyle, I think. Or Ken. No. Kyle. Definitely Kyle."

"Okay. Yeah, I'll order in some stuff. Should be fine."

"Great."

Shawn sets down his fork then. "Are we gonna talk about last night?"

Cory takes a deep sip of his beer and feels his imaginary porcupine quills bristle. "What? About you coming home drunk or about you staying out all night with some ex-boyfriend?"

Shawn frowns. "Ex-boyfriend? Do you mean Charlie?"

"Well, ex whatever he is."

"Ex-guy-I-used-to-play-pool-with?"

"Whatever you want to call it. What'd you guys do together all night? Play  _pool_?" Cory says this last word as if it's a euphemism for some extremely scandalous sex act.

Shawn stares at him for a long moment. Then he rises and steps away from the table. "You know what we did all night? We played some pool. We had a couple drinks. We talked about our kids. And it was great. I had a really good time. I got to feel like a normal guy again for a while."

Cory feels like the floor's dropped out from underneath him. "What's that supposed to mean? How do you not feel normal anymore?"

Shawn hesitates as if trying to find words to explain himself, then he throws his hands up. "Forget it. I don't know what the hell your problem is lately, but I can't take any more of it tonight."

Cory remains seated at the table as Shawn heads off to bed. Normal, normal, normal. What does it mean that Shawn doesn't feel "normal" anymore? That can't be good, whatever it's about. And if being with that guy Charlie made Shawn feel normal again, does that mean that being with Cory make him feel  _not_  normal? Puzzling this out, he puts away the leftovers and cleans up the dishes.

By the time Cory heads to bed, Shawn has long since fallen asleep and Cory lays there, watching him sleep and worrying. With all the life-changing stuff that's happened over the past few months-Cory's job and divorce, Shawn's daughter and custody battle, buying a new apartment, setting up house together-they've never really sat down and talked about how just being in this relationship would change both of their day to day lives. Cory knows for himself it's certainly a whole different ballgame than what he's been used to, what a relationship was like with Topanga. And he hasn't really even thought about how different this must be for Shawn, on top of everything else he's been dealing with. Maybe "normal" for Shawn is going out with other people, not being faithful and committed to just one person for the rest of your life forever. "Playing pool" or "fucking each other's brains out" with an endless supply of charming, attractive people like Tom and Charlie-isn't that what normal has meant for Shawn for all these years before Cory came back into the picture? Maybe he's realizing that he misses that. Maybe he's starting to regret jumping into this whole new life with Cory. Maybe that's why he's doing the not eating thing again or why he would come home drunk last night after Cory's not seen him have more than an occasional beer with dinner for the past nine months. Maybe Shawn's realizing he doesn't actually want this but he doesn't have the heart to tell Cory.

This thought is extremely unsettling as he looks over Shawn's silhouette in the moonlight. Cory loves him so much and he doesn't want to lose him. But he also doesn't want to keep him someplace he doesn't want to be.

Feeling sick at the thought, Cory wraps himself around Shawn. In his sleep Shawn murmurs a little and squeezes Cory back.

_God_ , Cory thinks,  _Please don't let this be the truth._

* * *

Shawn combs his hair to one side hastily and frowns at it. Then he combs it all to the other side and frowns some more. He's been growing his hair out for months since Cory likes it long but, frankly, Shawn thinks it looks stupid. He glares at himself under that ridiculous mop of hair and he just sees that insecure little teenage boy from the trailer park trying so hard to look cool.

"Ugh," he groans and combs it all straight back. It flops forward into his eyes almost immediately. "Fuck."

He stomps out of the bathroom and decides he'll get dressed first, then deal with his stupid hair. This task isn't much more pleasant, though. While he's looking significantly better than he did when Cory first came back to New York, Shawn's still having a hell of a time getting back to where he should be, like those two months of falling into such poor shape have permanently fucked up his body. And he's pretty sure his weight has started slipping again. It's just discouraging and depressing. What he hates most of all is that this failure is visible to anyone who looks at him. He'd much prefer to keep his failures private, thank you very much.

He takes his time, trying to find something that is nice at least, though he does his best not to look at himself in the mirror, focusing instead on the clothes. He pulls on jeans, a t-shirt, a button-down, and a sweater, fighting the urge to slip on a second sweater over the first. He returns to the bathroom and gets out the jar of gel that he's been using for the past few months to keep his hair greased back and out of his face; it's the only thing that's keep his growing hair from driving him crazy. But then he stops. Cory's been after him for ages to wear his hair like this again. Maybe that would make him happy tonight. Shawn returns the unopened jar of gel to the medicine cabinet, gives himself one more glare ( _you skinny floppy-haired trailer trash piece of shit_ ) and then walks out, resolving to avoid all mirrors for the rest of the evening.

He rearranges the throw pillows on the sofa one more time, double-checks that Cecilia's dusted the bookshelves (of course she has), then wanders into the kitchen. He wants, more than anything right now, to pour himself a glass of wine or a shot of whiskey to steady his nerves. Somehow what he thought would be a low-stakes little get-together has turned into a whole other thing. Cory's mad at him about God knows what, Tom's bringing his new boyfriend who Shawn resolutely does not feel like meeting (every boyfriend of Tom's that Shawn's ever met has been horrible), and Shawn's been in a crappy mood since his argument with Cory last night. He doesn't like having Cory mad at him, he doesn't like feeling like his body is publicly betraying him, and he doesn't like that Tom is going to be here tonight doing that fake-friendly-but-really-judgey thing he does.

Shawn doesn't pour himself anything to drink. Instead he takes one of Sadie's string cheeses and goes to sit in her room and watch the fish.

Being in Sadie's room is the next best thing to having her here. Shawn feels comforted by the pictures of the animals, the polka dots, the general atmosphere of Sadie-ness that having her things all in one place brings. He sits down on the bed and pulls off strands of cheese idly while he thinks about his book, tries to figure out why the hell it's suddenly gotten so hard to write after all the other books came so easily. He doesn't think there's anything that different about it-same old characters, same kind of mystery-but it's just not working well this time around.

When the cheese is gone, he lays back on the bed and gazes up at the ceiling. They should put up glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars, he thinks. Cory and Eric had them in their room when they were kids and Shawn had always thought that was the coolest thing. He remembers nights sleeping over, after the two brothers had fallen asleep, Shawn would lie awake, watching the stars gradually lose their illumination, wishing he never had to go home. He makes a mental note to ask Cory what he thinks about the idea.

Cory. What is going on with him? He's just...not himself lately and it's really worrying. He always seems weird when they go out in public, gets angry about the stupidest things. Everything had been fine-or seemed like it was-until a couple of weeks ago. Then he'd started acting cagey. Shawn's starting to wonder if Cory isn't having a harder time coming to terms with being in a gay relationship than he's let on. All those years denying how he actually felt, pretending to be something he wasn't...Shawn had expected this to be a much more difficult transition for Cory, but for months everything has seemed just fine. Now, though...Shawn can't help but notice how possessive Cory is of him when they go places, always putting his arm around him, saying things that let everyone around them know, loud and clear, that they're in a relationship. It's like he's overcompensating. Shawn wonders if Cory's not 100% on board with this big of a transition happening so fast. Poor Cory...Shawn doesn't want this to be so hard for him, but he's not sure what he can do to help...Poor Cory...

Shawn doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until Cory's there, waking him up.

"Hey, Shawnie, I couldn't find you. I was worried."

Shawn blinks and sits up on his elbow."I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's okay." Cory sits down beside him, reaches a hand out and touches Shawn's hair. "Are you wearing your hair like this?"

"I was thinking about it." He yawns.

"I love it like that."

"Mmmm." Shawn's about to say something self-effacing about it, but holds his tongue. If it makes Cory happy, then fine.

Shawn stands up and starts to brush the wrinkles out of his sweater. Only he would spend all that time picking out nice clothes, then immediately rumple them up by sleeping in them. He's such an idiot.

"What are you wearing?" Cory asks, smiling bemusedly.

Shawn looks down at himself. "Clothes?"

"No," Cory says simply. "Take the sweater off."

Shawn pulls the sweater over his head. His hair falls into his face again and he pushes it back with some annoyance.

Cory smiles at him. "Do you have a t-shirt on under that shirt?"

"Yeah."

"Take off the shirt, then, and just wear your t-shirt."

"Why?"

"Because I want to be able to look at you all night and know that there's just a teensy layer of cotton between me and your body."

Shawn does what he is told, unbuttons and removes his shirt. Then he stands there in his t-shirt, waiting for Cory's approval. He feels uncomfortably exposed, but also aroused. He likes it when Cory is bossy.

Cory stands up and walks right next to him so they are almost touching, front to front. Cory inclines his head slightly to whisper in Shawn's ear. "Did you put in the order for sushi ahead of time?"

"Yes."

"Did you have Cecilia come this afternoon instead of tomorrow?" Cory's breath his hot against Shawn's neck.

"Yes."

"Did you make sure the white wine was chilled?"

Shawn shivers a little at Cory's lips just barely brushing his skin. "Put it in the fridge this morning."

Cory looks him in the eyes with a manic smile. "What a good little housewife you are."

"Fuck you," Shawn laughs.

"Oh, no, Shawnie," Cory says with a falsely stern look on his face, "We have to wait. We have guests arriving soon." He gives him a maddening little tap on the cheek and then heads out to the kitchen.

Shawn remains standing in the bedroom and takes a deep, shuddery breath. For as much as he feels like he knows Cory Matthews backwards and forwards, being in a relationship with him can still be surprising.

* * *

The dinner party starts off being less horrible than Cory had anticipated. He realizes that Tom mainly makes him nervous when he's not actually there and just an idea of himself in Cory's imagination. In real life Tom is charming and generally great at putting folks at ease. This, combined with Shawn's own brand of charm, makes for smooth conversation and easy laughs. Which is good because Kyle turns out to be one of the least enjoyable people Cory's ever met. He's reserved and a bit sour-faced. Very quickly Cory comes to the conclusion that Kyle doesn't like him very much. By the end of the meal, Cory decides the feeling is mutual.

He takes a sip of his wine and watches Shawn telling a story about how Cory practically had a meltdown when they first moved into the dorm room together in college because he couldn't take Shawn leaving stuff out all the time. If anyone else told this story, Cory would feel like he was being made fun of, but Shawn tells it with such obvious affection.

"And he hasn't changed a bit," Shawn finishes with a smile. "If we didn't have the cleaning lady this place would probably have been the setting of a very violent murder-suicide by now. All because I left a glob of toothpaste in the sink, or something."

Tom smiles and holds out his glass while Cory pours him more wine. The guy can drink some wine. "But what makes for a difficult roommate makes for an excellent editor," Tom says.

Shawn's big smile appears then. He's practically beaming, the same way that he does when he talks about Sadie. "He's really good, isn't he?"

Tom nods. "Yeah. You might think it was me doing you the favor," he says, inclining his head toward Cory, "But it was really him doing me a favor. Cory's just got a natural sense for it. You can't teach that to these kids coming out of film school. You can't teach it period."

Cory feels himself blushing. Then he notices that Kyle is wearing an even more sour expression on his face than before. Cory's pleasure at the compliment dissipates.

"This guy, though," Tom laughs, pointing his glass at Shawn, "Worst roommate ever. I feel your pain, Cory."

"I didn't know you guys lived together," Cory says. He notices that Shawn's shoulders have tensed slightly.

"That shithole in the East Village, remember?" Tom says.

"Ugh, the Village," Kyle sighs, "I can't believe you ever lived there."

"Well, luckily," Shawn says, attempting to shut the conversation down, "I'm pretty sure I've killed off all the brain cells that remember much about that period."

"Oh," Tom says, "I wish  _I_  could. God, all the fucking strange people at all hours of the day and the drinking and the bad trips...I never knew what I was going to find when I got home. Do you remember the time you broke all that glass? I come home and there's just blood and glass everywhere. I thought he'd been murdered. And I couldn't find him. Couldn't find him anyway. Then, just when I'm about to call the fucking cops, I find him passed out in the coat closet with some girl. Remember that girl? You started hanging out with her all the time after that...What was her name?"

Shawn cocks his head as he pours himself another glass of wine, keeping his gaze fixed on the glass. "That was Anna, actually."

Tom roars with laughter. "The future mother of your child! I hadn't put that together. God, you don't think that was when..."

Cory looks at Shawn with some alarm. Shawn is just staring down at the table, draining his wine glass in one steady guzzle.

Then Kyle, God bless him, tries to change the subject. "So, you were a photographer before you were a writer, Shawn?"

Shawn swallows hard and nods, sets down his glass. "I was," he says, looking up with a pleasant smile that looks natural but that Cory can tell is anything but effortless, "I mean, not for that long. A couple years. A lot of freelance assignments. They liked it, you know, because I didn't really have anything holding me here. No family commitments, or whatever, they could just call me up on a minute's notice and send me off anywhere they needed."

"Sounds amazing," Kyle says.

"It was fun for a while," Shawn says with a shrug.

"All the insane shit he was doing," Tom says with a grin, "and he never once missed a deadline. He was such a shithead, but a total professional too. I always admired that."

"Professional shithead is more like it," Shawn says, getting a laugh from Tom and Kyle. Cory does not find anything to laugh about in this situation. He also does not like the way Tom is practically leering at Shawn.

"How about dessert?" Cory asks, standing up and hastily stacking the dinner plates and chopsticks.

"Yeah," Shawn says, rising as well, and speaking like a posh snob from a 1930s comedy, "Shall we convene to the drawing room, gentlemen?" Tom and Kyle stand up and follow with their wine glasses as Shawn herds them into the living room.

Cory takes the tray of miniature cakes out from the fridge, removes the cellophane, and carries it into the living room where the three men are standing near the window, taking in the view. To his dismay, nobody sits when he comes in. Instead they treat him like a waiter, taking the cakes from the tray as he holds it.

"Shawn's agent Helen recommended the place," Cory says, trying to focus on keeping the conversation light and cheerful and not to focus on the fact that, by being the waiter and needing to hold the tray with both hands, he's currently not getting to try any of the cake himself.

"God," Kyle murmurs, taking a second cake, "These are amazing. Give that woman more than 10%."

Then Shawn notices that Cory's getting shafted in this situation. He takes one of the little cakes and feeds it to him.

"Ugh, you two are adorable," Kyle says in a tone that seems to imply the opposite.

Shawn smiles at Cory, though, a warm and genuine smile, as he feeds him another little cake. Cory smiles back at him around the mouthful of sweetness.

"Enjoy it while you can," Tom says, refilling his glass once again, "You won't want to go near anything like that after next week."

"Why's that?" Shawn asks.

"We're gonna be gym buddies," Tom announces.

"Really?" Kyle says, grinning in a way that makes Cory uneasy.

Shawn shoots him a skeptical look from under his hair. "You're joining a gym?"

"I signed up today," Cory says softly.

"You should come with us," Tom says to Shawn.

"Ah, that's not really my thing," Shawn replies.

"Ugh," Tom laughs, "This guy..." He throws his arm around Shawn. "How much more amazing would he look with some muscle on him?"

Kyle laughs and Cory smiles uncomfortably. Shawn looks miserable. Then to Cory's horror, Tom is pulling up Shawn's t-shirt and displaying his bare chest and stomach to them.

"I mean," Tom says, patting Shawn's chest, "Can you imagine the muscle definition this guy could have if he tried? Hot."

Kyle laughs again and Cory wants to punch the idiot. And Tom too. Poor Shawn's ears are flaming red and he is very carefully not making eye contact with any of them. Tom's arm is still wrapped around Shawn and its that hand that he's holding his glass in. He does not lower his arm to take a drink, though. Instead he leans across Shawn's still-bared body to sip from the glass.

Cory clears his throat and sets the dessert tray down on the coffee table. "You wanna help me with that...thing...in the kitchen, Shawnie?"

Shawn doesn't ask what this "thing" that doesn't exist is. He simply extricates himself from Tom's hold and follows Cory mutely into the kitchen, pulling his shirt back down along the way. Behind them in the living room, Tom and Kyle are whispering and giggling about something.

In the kitchen, Cory pulls Shawn into the walk-in pantry with him and hisses, "What the hell was that about?"

"Forget it," Shawn whispers, "Tom's always been an asshole when he drinks too much."

"I don't like him touching you like that."

"I don't either," Shawn shrugs, still not making eye contact, "But forget it. It's not worth making a big deal about it."

Cory fumes quietly for a moment. Something about seeing Shawn manhandled like that makes Cory's blood boil. "You okay?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Shawn brushes his concern off, "Let's just go out there so we can finish this stupid party. This was a terrible idea."

They return to the living room and listen to Tom and Kyle tell some never ending, mildly amusing story about some mutual friend they have with Shawn. Cory doesn't really listen. He's still raging with anger inside. And it bothers him a little, how easily Shawn is able to act like nothing happened, put on a fake smile and appear amused and interested in everything they have to say. His ability to pretend is unnerving.

After a while, Cory excuses himself to go to the bathroom. After he pees, he splashes cold water over his face and takes a few extra minutes to compose himself. When he goes back out to the living room, however, only Kyle is there, sipping wine on the sofa, flipping through a binder of Shawn's old photography clippings. How he found that, Cory's not sure.

"Where'd Tom and Shawn go?"

Kyle doesn't take his eyes from the clippings, just vaguely gestures to the window behind him. Cory looks up and realizes that Tom and Shawn are standing out on the balcony, looking out at the street, their backs facing the living room. Tom has clearly gone out for a cigarette and Shawn is apparently keeping him company. Cory takes note at how close their shoulders are to touching. He sits down in the chair across from Kyle, keeping Shawn and Tom in his peripheral vision.

"He really wasn't bad," Kyle says and Cory has no idea what he's talking about until he holds up the binder to show him one of the clippings, a portrait of a Chinese dignitary accompanying an interview with her. "This one, for instance, is very nice."

Kyle returns the binder to his lap and continues flipping through it. He glances up at Cory, notices where he attention is and smiles a twisted little smile as he brings his eyes back down to the clippings. "It's enough to make you sick, isn't it?"

Cory pulls his attention back to Kyle. "What is?"

"How obviously they both still want each other?"

Then Shawn and Tom are coming back inside before Cory has a chance to respond to Kyle. Cory catches out of the corner of his eye Tom's hand just grazing over Shawn's hip, as if he'd been meaning to rest it there. But Shawn moves, almost imperceptibly, out of his grasp. Cory looks away quickly before he sees anything else. He's grateful when he hears Tom announce that it's late and they should be going.

" _Some_  of us actually have to get up and work for a living," Tom teases, giving Shawn a little jab in the side. It takes everything in Cory's power not to reach out and physically pull Tom's hand away from Shawn.

"He may not have to get up early," Kyle says, rising from the sofa and following them all down the hall, "But he's already made more money in the past year than you'll ever see in a lifetime."

"I don't know about that..." Shawn says modestly.

They reach the front door and Shawn shakes Kyle's hand. "Great to meet you."

"Likewise. I really am a fan of your work."

"Thank you."

Cory shakes Kyle's hand as well and watches as Tom gives Shawn a great big bear hug. Shawn is completely stiff in his arms, but Kyle shoots Cory a meaningful look as Tom holds the hug a beat too long. Then Tom releases Shawn and gives Cory a one-armed hug. "See you in the morning," he says, "This was great."

After they have closed the door and heard the sound of Tom and Kyle tromping down the hallway, Shawn turns to Cory. "God, he is such an asshole. How did I forget that?"

"Why didn't you tell him to keep his fucking hands off you?"

Shawn looks startled by the vicious tone of Cory's voice. "I...I don't know. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, I guess..."

Cory shakes his head. He's not even sure who he's actually angry at, just that he's so angry he feels like he's going to explode. "I need to get to sleep," he spits out finally, "Will you clean up for once?"

Shawn raises his eyebrows in confusion. "Sure...of course."

"Great." Cory turns his back on him then and leaves him there in the front hall.

"Goodnight!" Shawn calls after him.

"Yeah," is all Cory can manage to say back.


	3. I'm Good at Repression

Something is poking Cory very insistently in the ribs. He moans and tries to bat it away, but it keeps poking at him.

"Cory!"

His eyes shoot open. Familiar blue eyes are staring down at him from a small, pale face. For one millisecond, Cory believes that he's gone back in time, that the Shawn he remembers from his childhood is looking down at him. Then he realizes it's Sadie. She is sitting on her knees on the mattress beside him, continuing to poke him, looking extremely concerned.

"What's the matter?" Cory asks.

"My dad won't wake up!"

Cory rolls over to look. Shawn is out like a light, but Cory can clearly see his chest moving. "It's just his sleeping pill," he mumbles, "It makes him hard to wake up."

"Oh."

"What time is it?"

Sadie climbs over him to look at the clock. Cory sucks in his breath as sharp knees dig into him. "Four forty-six!" she says.

He winces. "What are you doing up?"

"I had a bad dream."

Cory's about to ask her if she wants him to take her back to her bedroom, but she is already pulling back the covers and making herself at home in their bed. He rolls back over on his side and pulls the blankets back up over all three of them.

They lie there for a few minutes, Cory trying desperately to get back to sleep, Sadie fidgeting like crazy, and Shawn still dead to the world. Finally, Cory asks, trying not to sound as annoyed as he feels, "Are you going back to sleep or not?"

"I'm not tired anymore."

He sighs. "All right. Let's go make pancakes."

Sadie has kicked off the covers and is padding out to the kitchen before he even gets his eyes fully open.

* * *

Cory moves like a zombie, taking out the flour and milk, eggs, butter, and baking powder, setting each purposefully on the counter. In contrast, Sadie is dancing around the kitchen impatiently as he gathers the ingredients. She is wide awake, despite the fact that the sun is just barely peeking through the windows.

"We need a big bowl and a whisk," he tells her, to give her something to do. Obediently, she begins opening cabinets and drawers.

"Will this work?" She asks, holding up a big, plastic mixing bowl.

"Perfect. Do you know what a whisk looks like?"

"Yes!" She rummages through a drawer, pulls one out and hands it to him.

"Good job," he says.

She smiles and climbs onto one of the bar stools, taking a seat to watch him measure out the ingredients. Each time he fills the measuring cup, he gives it her and she happily dumps the contents into the bowl. It brings back fond memories of making pancakes with Morgan when she was little. Sadie has a much sunnier personality than his sister, though. Morgan seemed to have been born cynical. Sadie, by contrast, is just about the most cheerful kid he's ever met. She keeps up a steady stream of chatter as Cory makes the batter, heats up the grill and starts to make the pancakes. She tells him about a friend from school who just got a kitten, a movie they watched about how crayons are made, her three favorite episodes of  _Busytown Mysteries_  and how her dad promised to take her today to pick out a plecostomus for her aquarium.

"So, you like your fish tank?" Cory asks, stacking the finished pancakes onto a platter. He feels a twinge of regret that he wasn't home last night when she saw the fish tank for the first time, after all these weeks keeping it a secret. Shawn and Sadie were both already asleep when Cory got home.

"It's so cool!" She proceeds to tell him all the names she's given to her guppies: Hailey, Isabelle, Ava, Brooklyn, and Jeremiah. They sound to Cory like names that probably belong to her friends at school, but he doesn't mention this. As he gives her a juice box, she tells him how she named her snail Elmer and how she was going to save the name for her future dog that she wants to get someday but that "Dad said Elmer's a good name for a snail too."

"He's right," Cory says, sliding her a plate of pancakes and fetching the syrup from the pantry, "That's a really good name for a snail."

Then he returns to the pantry to fetch the oatmeal for his own breakfast. He pauses, though, when he sees that Sadie is staring at him, aghast.

"Why aren't you having pancakes?" She demands to know.

"Well, oatmeal's better for me," he explains, "I'm not supposed to be eating pancakes."

"But it's Saturday."

Her logic is flawless. Cory leaves the canister of oats on the counter and starts forking pancakes onto a plate instead. And then Shawn emerges from the bedroom, sleepily running a hand through his hair, somehow managing to make the mop on top of his head even messier.

"Why'd nobody invite me to the party?" he asks.

Sadie lights up at the sound of his voice and giggles as he takes a seat on the barstool next to her and pulls her in for a squeeze and a kiss on top of her head. She gives him a syrup-sticky kiss on the cheek in return. Cory watches this little scene and feels a great pang of jealousy. He watches Sadie cuddle up against Shawn and Cory thinks to himself,  _I will never get to have that_. It's a sobering thought, one he's had many times over the past few months while watching the two of them together.

He slides the plate of pancakes he'd put together over to Shawn and resumes making his oatmeal.

Shawn pours an absurd amount of syrup over his pancakes and asks Cory, "You coming out with us today?"

Cory shakes his head. "I gotta go into work."

Shawn gazes at him a minute and Cory can tell he's trying to gauge the hostility level of this comment. They haven't really been speaking much since the disastrous dinner party with Tom and Kyle. Not officially "not speaking," but avoiding anything but the most necessary and terse conversation. Then Shawn just nods and turns his attention fully to Sadie.

Cory listens to them talking and finishes up his oatmeal quickly. Then he dumps the pancake stuff under water in the sink and goes to get dressed for work. When he leaves the apartment, Shawn and Sadie have set themselves up inside a mountain of pillows and blankets on the sofa and are watching cartoons, happily chatting.

Cory's surprised to find that there are tears in his eyes as he heads for the subway.

* * *

That afternoon, Shawn sits at the dining room table with Sadie while she works on her homework. She always seems to show up with a backpack full of the stuff and a sheet of extremely detailed instructions from Anna about everything that needs to be done. Shawn's shocked at the amount of homework a first-grader has; he can't remember even having homework until later in grade school and nowhere close to this much. But, then, Shawn reasons, he probably had it and just never did it. He wasn't a very good student, after all. He also never really had anybody at home looking out to make sure he did it, let alone help him with it.

He watches Sadie dutifully filling in her workbook pages and remembers how confused he was the first time he was over at Cory's house and Amy Matthews offered to help Shawn with his homework. He thought at first it meant she was going to do his homework for him, but then she kept asking him questions and making him come up with the answers and it didn't seem like his idea of help at all. It also became clear very quickly that Shawn was barely able to read, that it was taking him three times as long to read each question than Cory. Even now, twenty-some years later he can still feel that shame in his belly as they all-Shawn, Cory, Mrs. Matthews-realized at the same time how dumb Shawn was. Shawn had made up an excuse to go home then, and avoided coming back to the Matthews' house for a while after that. But Cory eventually coaxed him back and, for some reason over the next few weeks every time Shawn and Cory were doing homework after school, George Feeny seemed to be over at the Matthews' house at the same time. And every time Feeny was there, he'd find some reason to get involved in their school work and ask Shawn a bunch of questions just like Mrs. Matthews had, give him helpful little tips that made it so Shawn didn't have to sound out every single word when he was reading. Eventually there wasn't much difference when Shawn read things out loud or Cory did. Shawn hadn't realized until years later that they'd all conspired to tutor him; he'd believed that somehow he'd just gotten slightly less dumb.

He looks at Sadie, her soft hair pulled back in a headband, tongue posed lightly between her teeth as she concentrates on writing out letters and circling correct answers with her chunky pencil. He thinks about how lucky he was to have met the Matthews, to have people like Feeny and Turner for teachers, to have stumbled upon so many people who would come to care about him. He feels a flush of guilt thinking about how many times over the past few months Cory has asked him to come back to Philadelphia with him for a visit and how each time Shawn's come up with a reason why he can't.

Shawn's not sure why he's come up with so many excuses. At first, the idea of going back there, not as Cory's friend, but as Cory's gay lover, the guy who broke up Cory's marriage and probably ruined his parents' golden image of their son, was justifiably terrifying. Over time, though, it's come to be less about Shawn being afraid to go and more about Shawn being resentful of going. It's childish and silly, he realizes, but Cory seems to have endless things to do every time Sadie's come for a visit, always a big project for work or a reason why he needs to go to Philadelphia that weekend, and it's started to really piss Shawn off. He knows Cory signed on to be a boyfriend, not a parent, but, it hurts. Sadie's a big part of Shawn's life now; she's his family. And every time Cory makes an excuse for why he can't be around to spend time with her, it just makes Shawn want to retaliate by finding excuses not to visit Cory's family. But it's not working that well because, really, they're Shawn's family too. Or the closest thing he has to one. And he'd really like to see them. And introduce Sadie to them. He resolves to talk to Cory about a visit. Once Cory's not so mad at him anymore.

After Shawn checks over her workbook pages and she makes the handful of corrections he suggests, Sadie goes to slide her pages back into her folder. "Oh," she says, pulling out an envelope that had been tucked inside, "This is for you."

Shawn opens the letter. It's a notification about parent-teacher night at Sadie's school. "I think this is for your mother," he tells her.

Sadie shakes her head. "Mom already got hers. This one's yours."

"Oh." He looks at the letter more closely. It's just a straight-forward, informative note, listing the time and date and the name of the teacher he's supposed to be meeting with. But it's the first time he's been expected to appear publicly, officially as Sadie's parent. The idea makes him a bit anxious. And then he realizes that Anna will be there too. Oh, god. The whole thing fills him with dread. He puts the letter back into its envelope, folds it in half, and tucks it away in his pocket. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Now," he says to Sadie, feigning forgetfulness, "What did I promise we could do once you finished your homework?"

She rolls her eyes and scoffs, "Go to the pet store."

Shawn is both startled and amused by this response. How did this kid get to be so much like him? He feels a brief bit of guilt toward all the adults who always had to deal with his smart ass younger self. Then he shakes the thought away. "Pet store it is," he says, "Get your jacket."

* * *

Cory sits back in his chair and stretches. They've spent all day working on this clip and it's finally at a place where they're both happy with it. He smiles and accepts a celebratory beer from Tom.

"Nice work, Matthews. I think they're gonna be really pleased with this."

Cory sips his beer with satisfaction and watches as Tom starts copying some of the files and gets it all prepared to send off. Things with Tom since the dinner party have been okay, surprisingly. Maybe Shawn's right and Tom's just an asshole when he's had too much to drink. At work all week he's been fine-professional, cheerful, funny-it's like the dinner party behavior was something Cory dreamed. He's felt a little surge of anger every time the memory of Tom touching Shawn the way he did that night pops into his head, but that's been happening less frequently as the week's gone on. It helps that they've been so busy on the current project. All they've really had time to talk about is work. And when they just talk about work, it's fine. Cory loves this kind of project and Tom's a great partner to work on it with.

Tom finishes up what he's doing and sits back with his own beer. "So why aren't you rushing home to bed that man of yours?" he asks.

Cory feels a bit leery that the conversation's suddenly turned personal again and that Tom is, of course, bringing up Shawn, but Cory tells himself he's being overly sensitive. He shrugs. "He's out with Sadie tonight."

"Mmm," Tom nods, "That's a little strange, huh?"

Cory gives a slightly uncomfortable laugh. "How's that strange?"

"Oh, I just mean...you know, Shawn suddenly playing Daddy. That's got to be weird for you. It's weird for me just even thinking about it."

"I guess." Cory nurses his beer, still feeling uncomfortable. Then Cory tries to clarify, "I guess I wouldn't call it weird. You know, it's a new situation. So in that sense, it's different. But I'm just trying to stay out of the way, give them a chance to get to know each other. Let Shawn just figure out how to be 'Daddy' or whatever without me getting in the way."

He looks at Tom's patronizing expression and feels the need to clarify further. "He's doing really well with it. Shawn's actually pretty good with kids. They're sweet together."

"That's good."

"Yeah." Somehow Cory still feels like he's betraying Shawn, not appearing supportive enough, or something. He tries to change the subject, still a bit dismayed. "Why aren't you rushing home to Kyle?"

Tom makes a face. "Kyle's not happy with me at the moment."

"What happened?"

"Who knows. Never date a jealous guy, Cory. You're lucky there. I don't think Shawn ever cared who I talked to or fucked, or whatever."

Cory frowns. It's true Shawn's not a hugely jealous type, but it's not like that means he doesn't care. Or does it? Cory racks his brain, trying to remember a time when Shawn expressed jealousy over Cory getting attention from someone else. He can't think of anything. Even all those years when Cory was dating Topanga, Shawn just let it happen, barely doing more than grouse occasionally when he felt it was cutting into their friend time. That wasn't exactly jealousy as Cory saw it. Shawn had been perfectly content to share Cory. The only times he'd ever spoken up in protest-at the wedding, all those speeches he'd given Cory nine months ago-it hadn't been about not wanting Cory to be with someone else. Not really. It had been about not wanting Cory to make a mistake that would make him unhappy. Shawn cared about Cory. Cory was certain of this. But did Shawn care about keeping Cory for himself? Or, for that matter, keeping himself just for Cory? What did it mean that he never got jealous?

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Tom says, in a tone that's softer, a bit more hesitant.

Cory snaps out of his thoughts. "Uh, sure."

"It's none of my business, but is...is Shawn doing okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's just...seeing him the other night," Tom bows his head a little and Cory can tell he's struggling to be delicate with his words, "He doesn't look great. It just reminded me of how he looked when...well, how he looked when he first started getting really bad into everything."

Cory finds he can't quite speak for a moment.

Tom rushes to amend this statement and its possible implication. "I'm not saying he's using again, or anything. Obviously, you'd know if that were happening. It just...well, seeing him looking like that again, it brought back a lot of not-so-great memories. Just made me a little concerned, that's all."

"No," Cory says before he even realizes he's speaking again. He listens to the word sit there between them. No. Nothing Tom is implying could possibly be true. No. He lets that word sit until it sinks in and becomes clear to both of them. Then he continues with an apologetic smile, "Shawn's fine. He got pretty run down toward the end of last year and he's just had a hard time bouncing back. That's all. He's fine."

"Oh," Tom says and then puts on a tight smile, "Well, good. I can't tell you how glad I am to hear that."

Cory mirrors his tight smile and sets down his empty bottle.

"You wanna come home and get dinner with me and Kyle?" Tom asks,"I think he'll be a lot nicer to me if you're there."

"I don't know..." Cory checks his watch and thinks about it a minute. He thinks about going home, being in the middle of daddy-daughter time again, how annoyed he still is with Shawn about the other night, how awkward it is talking to him right now. Even dinner with Tom and Kyle has got to be better than that. He looks up at Tom gratefully, "Sure. That's sounds great."

* * *

It's only September, but the temperature has dropped a lot and Sadie's cheeks are red with cold as they walk to the subway. Shawn's very annoyed at Anna since she's sent Sadie to visit for the weekend without a real jacket, just a sweater. What the hell was she thinking? So now they find themselves inside a garish children's clothing store, all bright colors and sing-songy music where he instructs her to pick out a jacket.

"Get yourself a hat too," he says as she dashes off into the racks, leaving him standing there awkwardly among the displays of pink and purple leggings and glittery t-shirts. Not for the first time, Shawn feels slightly overwhelmed by this world he's found himself dropped into. He thinks again about the letter in his pocket. What business does he have attending a parent-teacher conference? Some tiny part of him half believes that the teacher's going to suddenly produce Shawn's old school records of D's and F's and detentions and suspensions, or testimony about his fucked up past with drugs and alcohol (hell, Anna could provide that) and it'll all just turn into some referendum on how he's the last person in the world who should be entrusted with the care and education of a kid. He shudders at the thought.

"Shawn?"

He turns at the sound of his name and sees Helen, his agent. "Oh," he says, puzzled, "Hi."

"Hi. What are you doing here?"

"Here with my daughter," he glances around to point her out, but can't spot her, "She's around somewhere."

"Oh, of course."

"What are you doing here?"

"Buying school pants for my son," Helen says brightly, holding up a stack of folded boys chinos, "Another thrilling Saturday night."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Then he spots Sadie heading toward him. She's carrying a pink sparkly hoodie. "That's not warm enough," he declares as she walks up to him, "Go back and pick out a real jacket."

Sadie rolls her eyes ( _where_  did she pick that up? what kind of six-year-old has that attitude?) and drags her feet as she heads back into the racks.

"Well, anyway," Shawn says sardonically, "That's Sadie."

"Very cute. And keeping you busy, huh?"

"Ah, you know," Shawn shrugs and glances away, ostensively looking to keep an eye on Sadie. He knows where this conversation is about to head and he really wishes he didn't have to be present for it.

"So, I haven't heard from you lately about the book."

"Ah, you know," Shawn repeats, giving her another shrug and an embarrassed smile.

"Hey, don't stress about it," Helen says, giving his arm a little squeeze, "You're safe for a bit. But if it's still going badly in a few weeks and you think you're going to need more time, let me know, okay? Schedules are going to have to be rearranged. We might have to push some stuff back."

"Yeah, yeah," he shakes his head, "Of course. It'll be fine, don't worry. No need to rearrange anything."

She gives him an uncertain look. She's not quite buying his reassurances. But then Sadie appears in a puffy silver parka and Shawn uses this as an excuse to escape from Helen. They say their goodbyes, then he follows Sadie off into the outerwear section of the store to pick out an actual jacket. He searches through the racks for something suitable and does his best to ignore the rising uneasiness in his stomach and not to think for the millionth time that this book is simply never going to happen.

Then Sadie wanders over to a nearby table display and shouts back at him, "Hey, Dad! Look!"

Shawn walks over and is surprised by what he sees.

"It's your books!" Sadie exclaims excitedly, "On t-shirts!"

"I see that," he says, putting on the best smile he can manage at the moment. He looks over the cartoon image of his books' hero, Cheaty O'Zero, emblazoned across the fronts of dozens of neatly folded, colored t-shirts. There is just no escaping this.

"That's so cool!" she says, running her hand over the row of green shirts.

Shawn smiles a genuine smile, despite himself. "You want one?"

"No," Sadie explains, "They're for boys."

This is dismaying. "No, they're not," he says.

She gives him a look that he swears is actually patronizing. He's being patronized by a six-year-old. "Those are totally boys' shirts," she says.

Shawn frowns. The colors of the shirts are definitely a little boyish. And the character on the front-his beloved Cheaty-is a boy. But he certainly didn't write the books thinking that only boys would read them and he knows for a fact that plenty of girls, Sadie included, are fans. This notion that Cheaty's just for boys is really bothering him for some reason, but he can't quite put his finger on it.

"How about for bed?" he asks, "Would you wear one to sleep in?"

Sadie shrugs. "Okay."

"All right. Well, pick out one you like. I'm gonna find you a jacket. What size do you wear?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what size do you usually buy?"

"I don't know. Mom buys all my clothes."

Shawn pauses. Of course Sadie has no clue what size clothing she wears. She's six. He should understand this. "Well, turn around, then. Lemme see your tag."

Sadie turns obediently and Shawn turns the tag out from inside her shirt. "Okay," he says, "Got it."

"Good job, Dad!" Sadie says, sounding exactly like he does whenever she finishes one of her workbook pages.

"God help me," he mutters as he wades into the racks.

* * *

Kyle's not at home when Tom and Cory arrive. Tom seems unruffled by this and begins pulling out things to make dinner with. Cory is a bit shocked at how nice Tom's apartment is. He wanders around while Tom cooks, admiring the gourmet kitchen, the sleek modern furniture, the excellent view.

"Your place is fantastic," he says as he returns to the kitchen and accepts the glass of wine Tom's set out for him.

"Thanks. We like it. Hand me that knife?"

Cory hands him the knife indicated and leans back on the counter, watching him work. It seems that Tom is, of course, a good cook. He moves with confidence, wields the knife and other tools with precision. Cory's enjoying the show. Topanga was the good cook in their relationship. He misses that a little. Shawn's idea of making a nice dinner for them is to just fry a bunch of stuff in a pan. Shawn considers anything that doesn't come out of a can "fancy."

"So, what about you?" Tom asks, tossing a dash of wine into the pan, causing a flame to briefly jump up.

"What about me?"

"Tell me about Cory Matthews. I've been working with you for months and I feel like I know nothing about you."

Cory shrugs. "There's not much to tell."

"According to Shawn, you had the most All-American, happy childhood that there ever was. He used to talk about you like you were a character on a sitcom."

Cory smiles a little to himself. Shawn's reference point for just about anything is usually television. "I guess I had it pretty good. Grew up in a nice house with a nice family. Married a nice girl..."

"Yeah, tell me a bit about that."

It's odd to have someone ask him about this so directly, but Tom has a way of putting Cory at ease. "I don't know. I wanted to be someone I wasn't. Enough that I kinda convinced myself. And everyone around me."

"And how long did that go on for?"

"Well, we started dating when I was fourteen. And we were together 'til this past January."

"Boy, when you set your mind to something..."

Cory laughs. It feels a little strange to be talking about all this with Tom, but it's also kind of a relief just to be talking about with anyone. His family's been too afraid to ask him anything so directly, and no one else has really cared.

"So when did you figure it out?"

"What?"

"That you were pretending. Or did you know it all along?"

Cory considers this as he watches Tom shifting the pan to sear things. He thinks about when he knew. When he really knew. All he can remember is Shawn at fourteen, his scrawny shoulders, his sullen expressions and that mouth, how Cory just realized one day that every time Shawn made him laugh, he wanted to kiss that mouth.

"I guess I did know all along," he says, a memory of Shawn this past summer laughing on the beach, Cory silencing his laughter with a kiss (God, that was a great day) fluttering into his consciousness, "I just didn't realize I felt that way about anybody but Shawn. And that wasn't something that could happen, so I focused on what could."

Tom shakes his head in amazement. "That's a lot of years of repression."

Cory finishes off his wine. "I'm really good at repression."

Tom laughs, snaps off the flame. "I never would have guessed."

Their conversation over dinner is lighter. They talk about work, make fun of clients, tell stories of their past. Tom grew up on a farm in rural Wisconsin. He talks about birthing calves and racing snow mobiles. It's so far removed from the world Cory knew as a kid and he greatly enjoys hearing about it. He's having a terrific time, actually, until Kyle comes home.

"Oh, Hi," Kyle says as he steps into the apartment and sees Cory at the table. "Didn't know we were having company."

For some reason, Cory suddenly feels guilty. It was just dinner. He knows this. But..."I gotta get going anyway," he says, rising from the table.

Tom seems a little disappointed, but he's also thoroughly distracted by Kyle's presence now. He gives Cory a forced smile as he walks with him to the door.

"Give my love to Shawn," Kyle calls over his shoulder as Cory leaves their apartment.

* * *

By the time Cory gets home, Sadie's in bed and Shawn's slumped on the couch watching TV with the volume low. Cory feels a rush of affection as he looks at him. He doesn't have his hair greased back today and he looks utterly boyish in his pajama pants and t-shirt. Cory sits down beside him and can't keep from touching his hair.

"You're wearing it like this now?" Cory asks.

Shawn doesn't move his eyes from the TV screen. "Apparently Sadie prefers it this way too."

"She has good taste."

"Or you have the same taste as a six-year-old girl."

"I'll take it."

Then Shawn rests his head on Cory's shoulder and Cory thinks he could just melt. "You worked so late," Shawn complains softly.

"I didn't work that late," Cory explains, "Tom and I got some dinner afterwards."

"Oh, that's good. Where'd you go?"

Cory hesitates just a second, that same feeling of guilt leaping up, but he reminds himself that he has nothing to feel guilty about. "We went to his place, actually. He's a good cook."

"Is he? I don't remember that." Shawn's tone is sleepily conversational, not accusatory at all. Cory feels his guilt subside a bit.

"So, what'd you guys do all day?" Cory asks.

Shawn lolls his head further back against Cory's shoulder as he recounts their day. "First we watched cartoons. Then we got dressed and did homework. That took forever. Then we went shopping for a jacket. And hit the toy store and the book store. We went to McDonald's for dinner, of course; nothing but the finest. Then we hit the pet store and came home. Only took about four episodes of Dora after we got back before she conked out."

"How much money did you end up dropping at the store?"

"You don't even want to know."

"You're gonna spoil her."

"I know."

"I know you want to give her everything you never had, but there's a difference between Sadie having everything she needs and Sadie having everything she wants."

"I'm so lousy at this, Cor. I have no idea what I'm doing."

Then Cory feels a little bad. He'd made it a rule not to backseat parent and to just let Shawn do things the way he wants to with Sadie, but sometimes Cory can't help it. "You're doing fine," Cory tells him.

Shawn doesn't seem fully sold on this reassurance, but he doesn't argue further. He takes Cory's hand in his and sighs deeply.

"Did you get the...whatchamacallit at the pet store?" Cory asks.

"Plecostomous. Yeah."

"What'd she name it?"

Shawn grins then. Cory can feel him grinning, even though he can't see it based on the where Shawn's head is positioned against him. "What?" Cory asks.

"She named the plecostomous 'Cory.' I swear to God, I had nothing to do with it."

Cory doesn't say anything in response to this, at first. Then he starts to laugh, his whole body shaking. "What is with you guys?" he asks, "Are you genetically incapable of not naming weird pets after me?"

Shawn sits up and smiles at him. "It's just a good name."

Cory shakes his head and then he can't help himself; he pulls Shawn close and kisses him. Shawn is receptive and kisses back and soon, Cory's pushed him down onto the sofa cushion and is pressing himself against him, giving kisses to his mouth, his ear, his neck. All the while, Shawn's got his neck thrown back sensually and Cory can see every tendon in it flexing. Shawn's hand finds it way to Cory's belt and starts to expertly un-do the buckle.

"I don't know where you've been the last few weeks," Shawn whispers, "But I missed you."

"I haven't been anywhere," Cory replies, pulling the hem of Shawn's t-shirt up his torso. An image of Tom suddenly darts into his mind and Cory winces instinctively.

Shawn drops the belt buckle and places his hand against Cory's chest, holding him off firmly.

"What?" Cory asks him.

Shawn studies his face carefully before he asks, matter-of-factly, "What's going on?"

Cory sits back, feeling at once unjustly accused and horribly guilty. "Nothing. What are you talking about?"

Those eyes are unrelenting. He continues to search Cory's face silently, for what, Cory's not sure, then Shawn puts on one of those fake, half-smiles as he extricates his body from underneath Cory's.

"I think we should probably call it a night," Shawn says, running a hand through his hair and heading for the bedroom.

Cory watches him go and feels sick. Shawn's trust is always such a fragile thing. Cory doesn't like the idea of shaking it, especially when he's not actually done anything wrong. He goes after him.

"Shawn..."

Shawn pauses just in the door of the bedroom, indicates Sadie's room next door with a head tilt, reminding Cory to keep his voice down. Then he continues on into the bedroom and Cory follows.

"Listen," Cory says quietly, sitting down on the bed as Shawn prepares to take his sleeping pill, "I don't know what it is you think is going on, but nothing is."

"Okay," Shawn replies, and pops a pill on his tongue, takes a swig of water from the bottle he keeps by the bedside.

"I'm serious. I need you to believe me."

Shawn gives him a patronizing smile. "I believe you, okay? Everything's fine."

Cory looks at him uneasily. Shawn doesn't believe him. This may, however, be the best he's going to get tonight. He gives up and decides to let it blow over. Cory walks across the room and starts undressing, taking clean pajamas from the dresser drawer, taking off his clothes and sorting them into the correct baskets he keeps in the closet (lights, darks, permanent press, dry clean only).

In the midst of this ritual, though, he hears a very distinct sound behind him: the grind and pop of Shawn opening his plastic prescription bottle once more. Cory continues with what he's doing, refusing to give in to his paranoia. Despite this refusal, he's quite sure Shawn has just taken a second sleeping pill. He's never done that before.  _That I know of._

Cory shakes that thought away, tosses his socks into the whites basket and pulls on his pajama pants. By the time he finally turns around, Shawn's already under the covers, eyes screwed shut. Cory snaps off the light and crawls into bed. He spoons up behind him and puts an arm around Shawn's bare, bony chest. He's losing weight again. That doesn't mean anything, Cory tells himself firmly. It doesn't mean that there is any reason to think twice about what Tom said this afternoon, to think there's any merit whatsoever to his suspicions. Tom doesn't know Shawn the way Cory does.

_Everything's fine. That's all there is to it. Everything's fine._


	4. A Fuck-Up in Your Heart

Shawn decides he's going to go crazy if he spends one more minute in this apartment. It's been a week since he managed to write a complete sentence that he didn't delete fifteen minutes later. It's been five days since his agent left a message and he's yet to return her call. And he's not even sure how many days it's been since Cory came home before Shawn was already in his pajamas. So Shawn loads up his phone with music, grabs his headphones, throws on a hoodie, and heads out.

And once he starts walking, he realizes he doesn't want to stop. He walks all over the city, blocks and blocks from the apartment, across boulevards and bridges and into neighborhoods he's never been to before. He keeps his head down and tries not to think about anything and he walks. When it starts to rain, he puts up his hood and keeps walking. It's the closest he can get to running away without actually running anywhere. He pushes forward and keeps on walking.

* * *

At the weekly office meeting, Tom announces that they've scored a major coup. A company they've been trying to court for years has just brought them a whole series of ads that "the assholes on 47th" completely screwed up. This is their chance to steal some serious business from their biggest rivals.

"This is huge," Tom informs them, "We play our cards right, we're gonna need to lease more office space for all the work this is gonna bring our way."

To everyone's surprise, Cory is given a lead position on the project, working with Tom and Tracy. Cory's pleased and excited about this development, though just a tad uneasy. He's much less experienced than a lot of other folks here. Why would Tom have given him this responsibility?

"You ready for this?" Tom asks, putting a hand on Cory's shoulder as they leave the conference room.

"Of course." Cory puts on a confident smile.

"Better let Shawn know he's not going to be seeing you for a while."

"Mmmm." Cory tries to imagine what this could mean. He's already been getting home at 8, 8:30 every night. He works late, then hits the gym afterwards with Tom, showers, heads back to the apartment, has a quick dinner, and then goes to bed. At best he's seeing Shawn for an hour or two before they're both asleep. The idea of seeing him even less seems pretty impossible at the moment.

He thinks about what Shawn had looked like this morning when Cory left for work. He was still in bed, sound asleep. His skin was pale in the dim morning light, his hair a dark, tangled mess. His shoulders and hips were set back in a way that, even in his sleep, came off as sort of nervy and insouciant. Cory had wanted more than anything to climb back into bed with him. But, mindful of the time, he headed out to work instead.

Sitting at his desk in the editing bay, picking over the cold Chinese food an intern had fetched, Cory vows to head home earlier tonight. When Tom drops by with his gym bag over his shoulder after most everyone else has left, Cory tells him apologetically that he's skipping his work-out.

"That's how it starts," Tom warns him, half-kidding. But then he tells Cory to say hello to Shawn for him. "And tell him to call me. Guy gets a boyfriend and I never hear from him anymore."

But when Cory gets back to the apartment, there's no Shawn to be found. He checks all the rooms, calls out for him, but nothing. Miffed, Cory pulls an apron over his work clothes and sets to making something decent for dinner so Shawn will have that when he gets home from wherever he is. Cory knows that when left to his own devices, as has been the case more nights than not lately, "dinner" for Shawn is at best a sandwich and a beer or maybe a can of Spaghetti-Os. If Cory's not around Shawn just doesn't bother to cook. Feeling a bit guilty about this, Cory does his best to engineer the heartiest meal possible with what they've got on hand. It's not much to work with; neither of them has been shopping in a while, but Cory puts together a ham and potato frittata that he's actually pretty proud of. He fights the urge to snap a photo of it and send it to his mother.

While it's baking in the oven, he texts Shawn.

_Where are you?_

By eight o'clock, he still hasn't received a response, the frittata is cold, and Cory's calls to Shawn's cell have gone straight to voicemail. Cory's equal parts worried and mad as he eats more than his share of the meal, then wraps up the leftovers (does this stuff even re-heat?) and shoves them in the fridge. Shawn's probably gone out to play pool, he tells himself, and can't hear his phone over the bar music. This is not an unlikely scenario and he can't even blame Shawn, really. Cory hasn't been home this early in ages. Shawn probably got sick of sitting around and figured he had time to get a couple of games in before anyone would even know he was gone. He's probably out with that guy Charlie right now, feeling _normal._ Cory still burns a little at this memory, how Shawn had said he'd felt normal when hanging out with Charlie, as if he felt abnormal when he was with Cory. What the hell did that even mean?

But by ten, Cory's still alone in the apartment, his calls still going straight to voicemail. Uneasily, he takes a shower, puts on his pajamas, and gets into bed. He doesn't think he'll be able to sleep a wink, but it's been a long enough day that he passes out shortly after he lays down.

When he awakens, it's pitch black but Cory can tell that someone is in the room. He snaps on the bedside lamp and blinks like a mole into the sudden brightness.

Shawn is standing near the dresser with his hood pulled up over his head, looking for all the world like an inept burglar. He is soaking wet. Instantly, Cory flashes back to another night when he'd found Shawn soaking wet like that in his bedroom, when Shawn was a thirteen-year-old fugitive and had come to Cory's looking for a safe place to hide.

"Sorry," Shawn says, "I was trying not to wake you."

"Where the hell have you been? And why are you all wet?"

"It's raining."

Cory climbs out of bed and goes to him, pushes back his hood. He is shivering. "Why were you out in the rain?" Cory asks.

"I was walking home."

"Why didn't you take a cab?"

"I just wanted to walk."

Cory sighs. "Come on." He takes Shawn by the shoulder and leads him into the bathroom and draws a bath. While the water is running, he helps Shawn out of his wet clothes, hanging them over the shower curtain rod to dry. Shawn is strangely listless and distant, like his brain is still out wandering the streets, but his body somehow just found itself here.

"Why didn't you answer any of my calls?" Cory asks,"I was worried about you."

"My phone lost its charge a while ago. Sorry."

Cory starts to say something in response to this, but holds his tongue. He turns off the tap, helps Shawn into the tub, and goes to make something hot to drink. He ends up microwaving a mug of instant hot chocolate, which isn't ideal, but it's quicker than waiting for a tea kettle to boil. When he returns, Shawn looks peaceful enough, sitting back in the steaming water, no longer shivering. He smiles as Cory hands him the mug, and he looks much more like himself. "This is great," he says, "Thanks."

"Where were you?" Cory asks again, taking a seat on the tub ledge.

"Nowhere. I went for a walk."

"In the rain?"

"It wasn't raining when I started out."

"When did you leave?"

"Sometime this morning. What time is it?"

"After two."

"Shit. I really lost track of the time."

Cory doesn't point out the incredible understatement this is. Or how unnerving the idea of Shawn going for a fifteen hour walk in the rain is. "Did you go anywhere?" he asks. Surely he wasn't just walking that whole time.

"Everywhere," Shawn says, "Pretty much." Then he looks up at Cory earnestly. "You should go back to bed. It's late."

"I'm not letting you out of my sight," Cory replies. "Finish your drink and let's go to bed together."

Shawn shrugs and returns his attention to his hot chocolate.

Later, when they're bundled under the blankets together and Cory is lying awake, trying to make some sense of the situation, Shawn says softly, almost dreamily, "I didn't run away."

"Why would you run away?" Cory asks.

"Because I always do. But I didn't."

"Well, I'm glad," Cory says because what else is there to say? He wraps himself more tightly around Shawn and hopes for everything to feel normal again in the morning.

* * *

The next morning, things do appear to somewhat back to normal. Shawn's as cheerful as he ever is in the morning, rising early and making Cory toast and coffee so they have time to eat together before he leaves for work. There's no sign of the strange, listless Shawn who showed up the night before. Instead he is attentive and interested as Cory's tells him about the new project, and the additional responsibilities his assignment to it has brought.

"That's great. All you needed was a job you actually liked and look at you, taking over the whole show."

Cory smiles, a bit proud of himself, it's true, but also just happy to have normal Shawn back. "This means I'm gonna be working crazy hours for the next few weeks," he adds tentatively, afraid that this news might spoil the happy mood.

Shawn brushes that off. "Well, obviously. How else are you gonna do all that in such a tight turn-around?"

"Will you be all right with that?"

"Why wouldn't I be? You gonna finish that toast?"

Cory hands his toast over gladly, despite having fully planned to finish it. Shawn with an appetite is a good thing. This makes Cory feel far better about everything suddenly. "Well, I know I'm not seeing you much now as it is."

"Eh. You're not missing much. I just worry about you."

"Me?"

"Yeah. All work and no play makes Cory a dull boy."

Cory laughs and sips his coffee.

"I'm serious," Shawn continues, "I understand you love this and all, but don't let Tom take advantage of you. He does that, you know, takes underlings and molds them in his image. He's already turned you into a gym rat."

Cory snorts his coffee. "I don't think thirty minutes a day on a treadmill qualifies me for gym rat status."

"I miss lazy Cory."

"Ah, he's still here," Cory says as he rises from the table and puts his coffee cup in the dishwasher, "Don't worry about it."

He gives Shawn a quick kiss and takes up his bag. "Don't wait up for me tonight, all right?"

Shawn nods. "Knock 'em dead, killer."

Cory heads out. Down in the lobby, however, he realizes he left his umbrella and it's supposed to be rainy again today, so he hops back in the elevator. He lets himself into the apartment and can hear the shower running as he digs his umbrella out from the coat closet. Then, still hungry, he grabs a granola bar from the pantry. He goes to throw the wrapper away, holding the granola bar between his teeth, and pauses with his foot on the garbage can pedal. Shawn's toast and the toast he took from Cory are sitting in the garbage untouched.

Shawn always was great at pretending.

* * *

There's something kind of pathetic about being the first guy in a bar when it opens for the day, but Shawn tries not to think about this. He needs to eat something, he wants a drink, and he wants to be someplace where he knows people. The bar where he plays pool is the only place he can think of that fits these requirements at the moment and they open for lunch at eleven.

Desiree is a friendly face and he's glad to see her when he takes a seat at the bar.

"How you been?" She asks while she continues setting up the register drawer.

"Not bad. How 'bout you?"

"Doing all right." She throws a bar towel over her shoulder and walks back over to him. "Is it a drinking at eleven a.m. kind of day, or are you gonna order lunch?"

"I need to eat," he says, "Soup?"

She gives him a look. "You need protein."

"I need protein," he declares, "What do you got?"

"I'll put you down for a roast beef sandwich."

"Sounds perfect." He puts on his most charming smile and watches as she sets a glass in front of him and reaches under the bar.

"Jim Bean with that?"

"Yes. Please."

He nurses his whiskey and watches as Desiree puts in his order at the kitchen and then continues getting the place into shape for the day's business. There's something very comforting about watching her perform these tasks: taking down chairs from the tops of tables, laying out cork beer coasters, switching on the lights over the tops of the pool tables. When he was very little and they still lived in Oklahoma, Virna was a barmaid and he remembers her sitting him on top of a billiards table and instructing him to stay out of trouble while she got the pool hall ready to open. Maybe that's why he always feels so comfortable at places like this.

Desiree's much more together than Virna ever was, though. They've been friendly since Shawn first came to New York, though he realizes he knows much less about her life than she does about his. She's an excellent bar tender in that regard. He does know that she's part owner of the place now, and that she plays a mean game of pool. She's the only person other than Charlie who's ever beaten Shawn here. He also knows that she sees and understands a lot more than she lets on.

"Where's that cute boyfriend of yours?" She asks when she brings Shawn his sandwich. Since there's currently no other customers, she takes a seat on the barstool next to him. She tears the band on his bundle of cutlery and lays it out on the napkin for him. Everybody is always doing little things like this, trying to mother him.

"He is cute, isn't he?" Shawn smiles.

"Those curls?" Desiree says, "I'd never get tired of those."

Shawn laughs and takes a bite of his sandwich. He's not hungry in the slightest, hasn't been in weeks, but he understands he has to make the effort. "He's with Tom," he says. Then he takes a sip of whiskey. "He's always with Tom these days."

Desiree frowns. "Tom who's always in here trying to pick up every dick on two legs?"

"That's the one."

She shakes her head warily, but doesn't say anything further. She doesn't need to. Shawn gets her message loud and clear.

He sets down his sandwich and opens his mouth to tell her that nothing's going on, but she stands up before he can speak. She taps the surface of the bar near his plate. "Finish your sandwich," she commands, "I want that plate clean when I get back."

She heads off to the kitchen and Shawn remains seated at the bar, staring down at a sandwich he doesn't want, his stomach churning. With a deep breath, he takes three more bites, drains his whiskey, then leaves two twenties on the bar before he takes off.

* * *

Cory gasps as he finishes the program on his treadmill and goes into cool down mode. He's been pushing himself harder than normal and probably went a little too far. But he just didn't want to think and, the faster he went, the easier it was to forget everything. It comes rushing back now, though. He curses under his breath, chugs his water, and powers the machine down. After wiping down the treadmill, Cory throws his towel over his shoulder and heads for the locker room.

Public showers have always skeeved him out, but he's a sweaty, disgusting mess so he showers and does his best not to come into contact with any of the tiles and to keep his feet firmly in his flip flops. When he gets out, his reflection is unavoidable as he must past through a wall of mirrors on his way to the lockers. It's not so bad, though. He's already lost a couple pounds since starting at the gym and he's feeling better about himself.

That is, until he rounds the corner and nearly runs smack into Tom, a tiny towel around his chiseled waist. Tom in nothing but a towel would make anybody feel inadequate. Cory gives him a weak smile and continues on to his locker. They chat a bit about the big project while they dress, discuss a game plan for when they head on back to the office. As they talk, Cory watches Tom, takes in the attractive sight of his body. And Cory realizes that the pleasure he's taking in the sight of Tom's body today is not so much to do with Tom being sexy or perfectly toned; it's the fact that he's the picture of health that is appealing. Tom isn't pale or undernourished or fragile. It doesn't break Cory's heart to look at him. Tom just looks good and sturdy and healthy. Cory feels an absurd desire to snatch away some of Tom's good health and bring it home to Shawn.

"What's the deal, Matthews?" Tom asks him then, sitting down to put on his socks.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been half here all day. Where's your head at?"

Cory sighs. "You're right. I'm sorry. I guess I've just been a little distracted. I know it's not a great time for that."

"No, it's definitely not a great time for it at all." Tom's tone softens then as he asks, "What's going on?"

Cory hesitates. He doesn't want to let Tom in on his concerns. It seems disloyal to Shawn. But Cory's desperate to get this aching worry out of his stomach and Tom's caring expression is actually putting him at ease. He sits down beside Tom on the bench and asks, without ever taking his eyes up from the floor, "When Shawn first started getting really...bad into everything, how did you know?"

Tom closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Ah, shit, Cory. I'm so sorry."

"No," Cory shakes his head firmly, "I mean, I don't know that anything is happening. It's just...there's been some weird stuff lately and I don't know if it's anything but, well, I don't even know what to look for."

Cory is surprised to feel Tom's arm around his shoulders. It's comforting, though, and Cory accepts it, leaning into him slightly.

"Let's see," Tom says, "I think it was when I started catching him lying about stuff that I knew something was up. Pretending, you know? And then he started not coming home or just flat-out disappearing for days at a time, keeping secrets, saying weird shit. It was like he started going insane in slow motion and pretty soon I had no idea who the fuck this guy was I was living with. And, yeah, he looked terrible and was always hanging out with strange people...he was like a magnet for trouble. Anything with the potential to destroy him and he was gonna go right for it. I was shocked when I heard he'd joined NA. I just figured he'd keep doing what he was doing 'til he was dead..."

Cory breathes a deep, shuddering exhalation, taking all this in.

Tom continues, "I love Shawn. He's a great guy and a lot of fun, but he's a fucking drama nightmare."

Cory feels worse than he did before this conversation started. On the one hand, he has a burning urge to defend Shawn's honor, explain all the ways that he's much better than Tom has just described. On the other hand, Tom's not making this stuff up. And he's the only person Cory knows who was around for all that stuff with Shawn. If there's any chance at all that things might be heading that way again, Cory wants to be prepared. So he can do something to stop it. But what the hell can he do?

"Can I give you a piece of advice, Cory?"

He looks to Tom, feeling wholly dispirited.

"Now, I say this as both your boss, and as someone who's pretty familiar with your situation."

"Okay..."

"Build a wall. Do whatever you can to keep that part of your life separate from this part."

Cory sighs and Tom seems to interpret this as meaning that Cory doesn't feel this is possible. "It's the only way you're gonna be able to not let his problems ruin your life," Tom says.

That sounds incredibly harsh and uncaring. Cory feels sick. But Tom's standing up and helping Cory to his feet and he looks confident and cheerful as always and he is, in fact, Cory's boss. So Cory puts on a weak smile and tries to look agreeable as Tom says, "The wall goes up starting now. That's all at home. Right now you're at work. That's one side of the wall, you're on the other. Okay? We're going back to the office and we're going to concentrate on putting together some fucking amazing ads."

"Okay," Cory agrees.

As he walks with Tom back to the office, Cory wonders why he feels like he's just sold Shawn down the river.

* * *

Shawn has spent the entire day trying to escape his thoughts, a surprisingly difficult task considering this is the busiest city in America but, unfortunately, one has to take his brain with him no matter where he goes. The last couple hours have been all right, though. He went to see a pretty good movie then snuck into a showing of another movie. Old habits die hard.

As he lets himself into the apartment around eleven o'clock, he tries consciously to be extra quiet in case Cory's home and sleeping, though he's not sure if he should expect Cory home at all yet. But there's a light on in the living room, so that solves that mystery.

Shawn comes into the living room and finds Cory sitting on the sofa with a beer. He still has his work clothes and shoes on and he looks agitated. Shawn bends down and gives him a quick kiss.

"I didn't know if I should expect you home yet," Shawn says. He stands back and starts unbuttoning his shirt. All he wants to do is take a shower and get into bed. Cory's glare is unsettling, though.

"Where were you?" Cory asks.

"I went to the movies."

"What does that mean?"

Shawn can't help but laugh. "Are you drunk?"

"No," Cory shakes his head solemnly, "I'm definitely not drunk."

"Then what do you think 'I went to the movies' means? I went to the movies."

"What did you do there?"

 _What the fuck?_ "I laughed. I cried. I ran the whole gamut of human emotion. That's the magic of the goddamn American cinema. What do you mean what did I do? I watched a couple of shitty horror movies. The end."

Cory scowls. "Were you alone or were you with people?"

Shawn's not sure where this bizarre line of questioning is leading to, but he can feel defensiveness starting to rise instinctually anyway. "I went alone."

"Are you sure?"

Shawn closes his eyes and breathes deeply. He wants to be very careful not to lose his temper. "Cory, you  _have_  to tell me what this conversation is actually about because I'm pretty fucking confused."

And Cory, Shawn realizes, seems to be trying equally hard not to blow his top. When he speaks his voice is low and measured. "I want to know what you've been doing, Shawn. I want to know what you do when I leave here every day. Where you go. Who you see. What you're doing with those people."

He has completely lost his mind. Or he's exhausted. Shawn looks at the circles under Cory's eyes, the worry lines that have creased his brow, and decides that this must be the case.

"Maybe you should just go to bed, Cor. I think Tom's working you too hard."

"Tom has nothing to do with this."

"Okay." Shawn shrugs and finishes the buttons on his shirt, takes it off and stands there in his undershirt, waiting for Cory to explain himself further.

Finally, Cory puts a hand to his temple and, not looking at Shawn says, "I think you need to see somebody. Maybe we can take you somewhere."

"What are you taking about? See someone for what?"

Cory gives Shawn a look that suggests Shawn knows what Cory's talking about, but Shawn is bewildered. "Just what do you think is wrong with me?"

"There's nothing wrong with you," Cory says, his eyes fixed on his bottle, "It's...you know, it's not your fault. Being in the city still and under so much pressure with the book and, and me...it was probably inevitable, really..."

And then Shawn finally understands what it is Cory thinks Shawn has been doing. It feels like getting kicked in the gut. He can't even form words, he is so stunned and hurt.

Cory continues, "I looked into some places. There's some really good places not too far from here. It's expensive but, I mean, that's not a problem. The important thing is that we put the breaks on this before it goes any further. Tom knows a woman who-"

"Fuck Tom."

Cory looks up at him then. "Shawn..."

"And fuck you. You really think that little of me?"

"It's not you, Shawn. It's a disease..."

"Oh, like you know anything about anything. Fuck you, Cory. And fuck whatever ideas Tom's been putting in your head about me." Shawn is shaking with rage and humiliation. He stomps back to the front hall and yanks his coat from the closet. He rummages through the pockets until he finds what he is looking for. Then he returns promptly to the living room where Cory's still sitting dumbfounded on the sofa. Shawn chucks his 4 Year NA token at Cory's head.

"I got that at a meeting earlier this week. Not that it's anybody's goddamn business."

Cory turns the token over in his hand, just staring at it and not saying a word.

"Thanks for believing in me, Cor. And thanks for having such low expectations of me. It's nice to know I'll still always be a fuck-up in your heart. Good ole' Shawnie."

"Shawn..."

Shawn doesn't stay to listen to what Cory has to say. He throws his coat back on and heads out into the welcoming anonymity of the night.


	5. Together-Together

Cory rubs his eyes again and tries to focus on the monitor. He hasn't been sleeping well lately and his mind seems to want to wander onto anything but these edits.

It's been days since he saw Shawn. He left after their fight and didn't come back that night. Cory's frantic apology texts and calls have gone unanswered. Shawn  _did_  come back to the apartment at some point the next day-Cory noticed when he got home from work that a bunch of Shawn's things were missing from the bedroom and the bathroom-but he's not been home at all since then, as far as Cory can tell. When Shawn decides to freeze somebody out, he doesn't play around. And it feels like shit to be on the receiving end of that.

It also feels like shit to have miscalculated things so badly and hurt Shawn like that. How is it that Cory seems to be so uniquely talented at doing this? How is it that Cory can be such a complete fucking idiot?

The apartment for the last few nights has been terribly empty without Shawn there, and everything reminds Cory of his absence. The last couple records Shawn had listened to stacked up on top of the stereo, the piles of books and handwritten notes in the office arranged in an order that only makes sense to Shawn, the absurd array of hair products in the medicine cabinet, a half-eaten doughnut Cory found moldering under Shawn's side of the bed...all of it just makes Cory ache. Every night that he's come home and found Shawn's side of the bed empty, Cory has just laid there with his head on Shawn's pillow, breathing in his scent and sending him text after text after text begging him to come home.

The only reply he'd gotten back from Shawn was a simple command:

_Please feed the fish._

Cory had done as instructed, stopping in Sadie's room every morning to shake some flakes in the tank, watching Little Cory the plecostomous sucking algae off the side of the glass with dutiful integrity.  _Scumsucker_ , Cory thought. Little Cory's name seemed suddenly appropriate.

"Hey, Matthews?"

Cory sits up, brought back to attention by Tom leaning in the doorway of the editing bay.

"You look like you could use a change of scenery," Tom says.

"Yeah, probably." Cory has spent far too many hours in this tiny room lately.

"Pack up what you're working on and meet me in the lobby," Tom tells him, then drums his fingers playfully on the door jamb before ducking out again.

Cory packs up everything he needs, tossing cables and drives into his messenger bag then checks his phone once again before leaving. Nothing from Shawn, but there's a text from Topanga. This is unusual, as she usually communicates via email. Lengthy, formal legal-ish email. He opens the message:

_Is there a good time I can call you this week?_

Cory's gut response is a resounding "No," as this is probably the worst week possible for Topanga to be looking for a "good" time to call, but he doesn't text that back. Instead he writes:

_Kind of a crazy week. I'll get back to you._

Then he tucks his phone into his pocket, slings his bag over his shoulder, and goes to find Tom.

* * *

Shawn marvels that he feels guilty letting himself into his own apartment. He owns the place outright, has a key and a spare key, just like a legitimate homeowner, and yet it feels like he's performing a B&E just walking into the place in its empty morning state.

"Cory?" he calls out, not surprised when he doesn't get a reply. Cory should have already left for work at least an hour ago.

He sets down his knapsack and tosses his keys on the counter. He's not sure he's ready to be back or ready to see Cory yet, but he's sick of the hotel so here he is. Shawn leaves his bag near the door, figuring he'll be back in a few hours and can decide whether to stay or go then.

It's too quiet, though. He walks as loudly as he can in his stocking feet over to the stereo and sets up Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3, a personal favorite. This is better. He leans against the bookcase and closes his eyes for a few minutes, listening to the symphony gradually climb from its quiet opening notes to the full-on, much more bombastic melody. It's nice to lose himself in it. He's still so filled with shame and anger every time he thinks about the other night. How could Cory could believe that of him? And trust him so little? That's probably what hurts the most. What the hell are they doing if Cory doesn't even trust him?

Shawn shakes this last thought away and heads into the bedroom to find something suitable to wear for the parent-teacher conference. The problem is, he's not really sure what suitable looks like. He tries a few different things, aiming to find something that adequately conveys "parental authority" and "not a degenerate" but doesn't make him look like some dope showing up for traffic court. And that isn't two sizes too big. This is not an easy task.

His phone rings at one point while he's busily covering the bed with discarded clothing options. He glances at it before he tosses it back on the pillow. It's his agent again. He definitely can't deal with that right now.

Eyeing the clock, he knows he needs to pick something and just go already. What will definitely not convey "parental authority" and "not a degenerate" is showing up late. Glaring at himself in the mirror, he takes off his suit jacket since it seems a bit much. But he looks like a Catholic schoolboy in just a shirt and tie. So he pulls a sweater over it and hopes this ages him and makes him look a little less skinny.

The phone rings again and he silences it and shoves it in his pocket. Whatever he's wearing now will have to do. He grabs his jacket and keys and books it for the train.

* * *

Cory feels like he should have guessed that Tom's idea of a "change of scenery" would be to work in Tom's home office. Cory's seen almost as much of Tom as he's seen of himself the last few days, to the point that it's feeling a little suffocating. Luckily, they're making good headway on the project so this might be over sooner rather than later. Cory just wants to get back to his life outside of work, back to fixing it up and making it whole again, back to Shawn. Goddamn, he misses Shawn.

At least Tom's home office is a nice place to work. It's a sunny, surprisingly spacious room for New York with large windows overlooking a small park. He has some pretty impressive equipment as well.

"How come you don't do more work at home?" Cory asks, admiring the cinema display that's actually newer than the one at work.

"Then I wouldn't get to see you," Tom jokes, "Or Sinclair."

Sinclair is a guy at work nobody likes. He kind of gives everybody the creeps. Cory forces a laugh. To be honest, he's been a little leery around Tom for the past few days. Not that Tom did anything wrong, but...well, Cory's just decided that it's best to keep up that wall Tom was talking about between work and his personal life. Tom's right about something, anyway.

They spend a long time running through different bits of footage, splicing digitally, debating various combinations of cuts. When they hit a particularly difficult stretch Tom decides they need a break and volunteers to go pick up lunch.

"You stay here," he instructs Cory, "and stop looking at this shit for a while. It stops making sense if you stare at it too long."

"Yeah," Cory agrees. He's been feeling like he's going cross-eyed for the last hour.

After Tom leaves, Cory stretches back in the chair and closes his eyes for a long while. Then he returns his attention to the computer but quickly minimizes all the program screens. He truly cannot stand to look at any of this right now.

And then a thought occurs to him. This is Tom's home computer. With all his personal files on it. Like a man possessed, Cory finds himself opening up iPhoto and searching by date back to the early 2000s. And then there, as Cory knew they would be, are the pictures Tom kept from the period when he and Shawn were together.

Cory's heart aches a little as he looks at Shawn from back then, the Shawn Cory had left behind. He is obviously younger, more baby-faced and a little soft-looking. God, he was just a kid. And Tom looks younger too, more like the farm boy transplant he was than the gym-sculpted urban sophisticate he's since molded himself into. He and Shawn made an odd couple, surprisingly. Tom is wholesome and All-American (not so far off from a Cory-type, he notes) and Shawn appears to have been at the height of his trashy rebel look, all long hair and tight jeans and motorcycle boots. There's pictures of them around September 11th standing on streets full of debris, fooling around during the citywide blackout in 2003, smiling together at an endless series of parties they either threw or just attended. It's a record of a life completely different from the one Cory lived during that same period. As the pictures move forward in time, it's easy to see the toll Shawn's lifestyle started taking. He is bleary and glassy-eyed in many of the pictures and grows progressively more gaunt and unkempt. And then Shawn's no longer in the pictures.

Cory goes back to look at a few of the pictures again, particularly the pictures of Shawn together with Tom. Cory scrutinizes them closely, trying to determine if Shawn's smiles in these pictures are genuine or just pretend, trying to find evidence that Tom did or did not make Shawn happy, trying to find evidence that, as Shawn claims, he was still in love with Cory throughout all of it.

Then he pauses as he realizes that a few of the thumbnails are not actually photos, but are icons for videos, frozen on whatever frame still the camera had randomly assigned. Cory had skipped over them initially, thinking they were just blurry pictures Tom had forgotten to delete. Now he double-clicks one.

_Oh, shit._

It's video of Tom and Shawn. Together.  _Together-together._

_Oh, fuck._

Cory brings his hand to his mouth but cannot tear his eyes away as he watches them together. The video quality is not great-the camera was obviously set up on a dresser a little too far away. It's at an odd angle and the lighting is bad. It's hard to see the detail. But Cory can certainly see enough. He watches, heart thumping, blood pounding in his ears, until the video abruptly cuts off.

Without hesitation, Cory immediately double-clicks the next video. To his relief, this video does not contain the two of them. It's just Tom filming Shawn who's talking to Tom behind the camera. Cory can't quite make out what Shawn is saying; his voice is slurry and he keeps laughing. He's obviously very high on something. His pupils are enormous and he's moving his mouth around in the uncoordinated way that he does when he's drunk or very sleepy. Cory watches the video again, trying to decipher Shawn's words but it's still impossible, though Cory's pretty sure that the last thing he says as he grins at the camera (grins at Tom) is "love you."

Then Cory's phone starts ringing and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

Quickly, he closes out the video and shuts down iPhoto, as if Tom will be able to see what Cory's doing through the phone. But when Cory picks up his cell phone, it's not even Tom calling at all. It's Cory's mom.

There is absolutely no way he can manage talking to his mother right now. Cory silences the call, then sits back in the chair and covers his eyes with his hands. He breathes deep through his teeth but his heart is still pounding. He can't get those images out of his head.

* * *

It's very strange to be back in an elementary school. Shawn walks through the hallway, feeling awkward and nervous and like any second some authority figure is going to pop out from one of the classrooms and scold him. He glances down at the information sheet in his hand again and back up at the numbers over the doors that he passes. Then he knows what classroom is Sadie's before he even reaches it because he can see Anna sitting outside. His shoulders tense up at the sight of her without his even fully being aware of it.

Anna doesn't look up as he approaches and sits in a folding chair opposite her.

"Hi," he says, but she doesn't reply.

So he takes out his moleskin notebook and pretends to be completely fascinated by a page in it. He stares at the page for what feels like years.

"I didn't think you would come," Anna says finally.

Shawn looks up at her. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You're not really a part of this."

"Of course I am."

Anna shakes her head and looks away. Shawn sighs and looks back down at his notebook.  _Why does it have to be like this?_

"Why do you have a notebook?" Anna asks, her lip curling slightly.

"I thought I might need to take notes."

"On what?"

"I don't know. Whatever they tell me."

She rolls her eyes. "You have no idea what you're doing."

Shawn glares at her. "No, I don't. And that's not  _my_  fault."

"Whatever."

"Yeah, whatever." Shawn crosses his arms and stares at the ceiling. He starts counting the acoustic tiles to try and distract himself and walk his temper back. It does nobody any good if he fights with Anna, he reminds himself.  _Keep it civil, Hunter_.

After an interminable amount of time, the classroom door opens and the previous set of parents walks out. Sadie's teacher appears and ushers Shawn and Anna into the room. She has them sit at the two student desks closest to her desk in the front. Shawn's immediate instinct as he sits down is to slouch as far back in the seat at possible, but he fights this urge. Instead he sits rather stiffly, eyes glued to the teacher.

The teacher-Mrs. Freeman-does most of the talking. She goes on for a bit with some rote information about the curriculum this year and what all the first graders will be doing over the next few months. Then she starts talking about Sadie. According to Mrs. Freeman, Sadie is cheerful and very social. Shawn suspected this and is glad to hear it confirmed. She's also very bright and leading her peers in all subjects. Shawn's a little surprised to hear this. Not that he thought Sadie wasn't bright, but he hadn't figured any kid of his would ever be top of the class, or anything. Even if it is only first grade. His heart swells a little with pride.  _Take that, Minkus._

"There is, however, the matter of Sadie causing disturbances in class," Mrs. Freeman continues.

"What do you mean?" Anna asks, "You mean she's acting out?"

"No, I wouldn't say 'acting out.' It's more that...well, I guess you might call her the class clown."

_Ah, there it is. There's the Hunter blood._ Shawn smiles to himself and both Anna and Mrs. Freeman look at him aghast.

"This isn't funny," Anna tells him.

Mrs. Freeman shifts direction slightly so now she's addressing Anna, leaving Shawn as sort of an afterthought. "I honestly feel that Sadie acts this way because she's not being challenged enough," she tells Anna.

Annoyed, Shawn scoots his desk closer to Mrs. Freeman. "You're saying she's bored," he asks her, "'cause the work isn't hard enough?"

"Basically."

Both Anna and Mrs. Freeman seem irritated that he's talking, but he doesn't care. "So isn't there, like, a smart kids class she should be in?"

Mrs. Freeman looks slightly exasperated. "As I'm sure your wife has told you, Sadie did test into the gifted program, but we're currently waiting for a seat to become available."

"He's not my husband," Anna says quickly.

Shawn ignores Anna and continues talking to Mrs. Freeman. "So, what does that mean? Sadie has to sit with all the dumb kids and be bored until some other kid flunks out of the smart class or moves away?"

"You have to understand the reality of public school budgets," Mrs. Freeman says with a patronizing smile, "Funds are not unlimited for gifted programs."

Shawn sits back and frowns. He doesn't like this woman. Feeny would never have promoted this kind of bullshit. Why can't Sadie have someone like Feeny? "So," he says, keeping his tone even, "Where is she on the list? Are we looking at this happening in a few weeks? A few months?"

"We'll reevaluate before the start of next year."

Shawn opens his mouth to tell her this is bullshit, but he can tell Anna doesn't want him to say anything, so he sits quietly instead. He waits to see if Anna's going to argue with Mrs. Freeman about this, but she doesn't. They just sit like good little kids while Mrs. Freeman finishes her spiel and ushers them back out to the hall and waves the next set of parents in.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Anna hisses at him once they're alone again in the hallway.

"This is bullshit. Sadie should be in a better school than this. What about a private school? I can swing that for sure."

"Stay out of it. Why can't you mind your own fucking business?"

"This  _is_  my fucking business."

Anna rolls her eyes and walks past him. "Just go back home and do whatever it is you do until it's time to play dad again for two days."

Shawn grabs her shoulder and turns her to face him. "What is your problem?"

She glares at him. "My problem is I don't want you anywhere near my kid."

"Why?" he demands, "Why am I so bad?"

"Because you're a horrible, selfish, unreliable asshole. God only knows what it is you do with yourself and what shit it is you're on right now. I don't want Sadie anywhere near that. Do you know how hard it is, sending her off into your care every two weeks? God, how do I keep her safe from you?"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. First of all, I'm not on anything. You know that. I've been clean for four years and I don't even drink beer when Sadie's over."

"Look at you, Shawn. I'm not an idiot. Or do you forget that I used to know you? I saw first hand what a fuck up you are."

"Yeah, and I seem to remember you were no angel back then either. But I can accept that that's not who you are anymore. I can trust you."

"Well, I can't trust you. I learned that. And there's nothing that makes me believe that you're ever gonna change." Anna turns away from him then and closes her eyes as if willing it all to go away.

Shawn is so fed up, though. He's so tired of everyone accusing him of things he isn't doing. He's tired of never being able to get away from his past. He thinks about how ugly the custody battle had gotten earlier this year, all the things Anna had accused him of, how she'd tried to force the courts to make him take random drug testing, to only allow him supervised visits. All of that had been so humiliating. But he'd had a good lawyer and he'd had Cory. He doesn't know that he'd have been able to get through that without Cory there with him. And now he doesn't even have Cory, his daughter's mother is still accusing him of terrible things and trying to force him out of Sadie's life. Nobody trusts him at all. They just keep seeing where he's come from, not the responsible adult he's worked so hard to become. He might as well still be that little piece of trash from the trailer park afraid to go to the police because they wouldn't believe him. Nobody believes him, nobody trusts him. Nobody sees anything when they look at him but a fucked up, worthless problem.

"You know," he says quietly, trying with all his might to stay focused on the problem at hand, "If somebody was offering you a blank check for you to give your kid the best education available, even if that somebody is a total scumbag, you think you'd jump at the opportunity. If only for Sadie."

"Oh, stop trying to throw your money around and control our lives with it. You're pathetic."

Shawn bows his head and holds his hands up in surrender. "Okay."

"You are. Truly."

"Okay, okay. I'm pathetic. I get it."

"Just go away. Please."

"Okay," he says again. "I'm gone."

He waits until he's almost to the train station before he punches a great big metal garbage can. He punches it over and over until his knuckles start to bleed and pain takes the place of anger. Then he wraps his hand in the hem of his sweater and hops the train back to Manhattan.

* * *

"All right, there, Matthews? You're looking a little peaked."

Cory looks up from the tin of pasta he's balancing on his lap and plasters on a smile. "Yeah, I'm great."

Tom raises an eyebrow. "You sure? You've been kinda...off since I got back."

"Yeah, yeah," Cory assures him, taking a swig of beer, "I'm fine. I'm just...thinking about that footage." It's not a lie exactly. Cory can't get that footage out of his head to the point where he's completely distracted. But Cory's just not thinking about the footage Tom thinks he's referring to. He also can't look at Tom and not see him...together...with Shawn in their homemade porn video. Cory ventures a glance at Tom but, nope. Still can't do it. Still can't not see it. He realizes with some distress that his hands have gone all clammy and he's sweating underneath his shirt collar.

Tom starts yammering on about work stuff and Cory does his best to shovel down the pasta, just trying to get through this meal. It tastes fine, but it's awful going down. He feels completely sick. He just keeps seeing Shawn in those pictures and the videos...Shawn all baby-faced and messed-up and Shawn fucking Tom and Shawn telling Tom he loved him...

And then Cory realizes the pasta's about to come back up. He bolts for the bathroom and makes it just in time, vomiting into Tom's fancy-looking toilet.

He doesn't realize he's passed out until he comes to as Tom is lifting him up from the marble floor.

"Shit, Matthews, I really am working you too hard," he says as he helps Cory to his feet and then leans him back against the vanity since he's too unsteady on his own.

"I'm so sorry," Cory murmurs, but Tom shushes him and unbuttons Cory's soiled shirt, throws it into the sink and turns the water on. Then he guides Cory into the bedroom, pulls back the covers and lays him down.

"Just take a break for a little bit, all right?" Tom says and removes Cory's shoes, belt, and watch. Cory tries to sum up the energy to protest, but it's cool and nice on the sheets, and he decides to just close his eyes and take a second to rest. It's so quiet and pleasant and dark...it's only minutes before Cory falls into a deep, exhausted sleep.

* * *

Shawn decides that he's going to go away. That's all there is to it. Not run. Not run away. Just go. For a while. For a trip. A week or so, maybe. That'd be enough time, right? Time to forget everything for a while and not feel like shit anymore. Reconnect with who he knows he is and not just who everybody else thinks he is. Someplace warm and sunny and beachy. With good-looking people who don't know him. That sounds just lovely. Lonely, but lovely.

This is what Shawn has decided by the time he makes his way back to their apartment building. Florida would be easy. Or, hell, Jamaica. His passport's still good. He could book it to fucking Tahiti if he felt like it. What else is his money good for?

Then he steps into the lobby, heads directly to the elevator, and somebody calls out his name. He stops and turns around. Amy Matthews is standing there, smiling at him.

Shawn just stares at her for a second, trying to process her presence. It's been nine years since he's seen her. And he certainly never expected to see her here, in the lobby of his building in New York City with zero advance notice. She looks not much older. Her hair is different, maybe a little shorter and more frosted. But her eyes are still just as kind.

"Hi," he finally manages to say, putting together an afterthought of a smile.

And then she's hugging him and it's so warm and nice and motherly that he almost loses it. He remembers how she hugged him when he was a little boy and fell out of the treehouse, and how he got tears and snot all over her nice sweater but she didn't even seem to mind. Amy Matthews is a point of comfort in so many of his childhood memories, Cory's mom that Shawn occasionally got to borrow and pretend was his. She always looked out for Shawn and cared about him like he was one of her own. She was what parents were supposed to be like. He hasn't realized until now how much he's missed having a presence like that in his life.

As she steps back from the hug, she puts a hand to the side of Shawn's face and says, "You look so grown up." Then she squeezes him gently, "And you're so skinny! Hasn't Cory been feeding you?"

Shawn smiles, embarrassed. "I didn't know you were coming."

"Oh, I didn't know either. I was supposed to spend the day shopping with a friend, but she had to cancel at the last minute and I was already on the train. So, I figured I'd give you boys a visit. Is your hand bleeding?"

"Huh? Oh." Shawn looks down at his battered knuckles. "I think it's mostly dried now."

She takes his hand into hers and examines it. "We need to put some antiseptic on this. You don't want to get an infection." She hits the elevator button and when the door opens immediately, leads him in then looks at him expectantly until he presses the button for their floor.

"Where's Cory?" he asks.

"I don't know. I called him but he didn't answer his phone."

"Oh." They ride up to the eighth floor, Amy still cradling Shawn's hand in hers like a baby bird. He tries not to think about how awkward this is. Or how this unexpected visit is spoiling his plans to be in and out and on the road again before Cory gets home from work. But it's also just kinda pleasant having someone be nice to him. It's been a while. He tries to push away the thought that he's the guy the Matthews family probably blames for ruining Cory's life.

In the apartment, Shawn fetches the first aid kit Cory had insisted they buy before Sadie's first overnight visit. He's glad to have it on hand; it makes him and Cory look more grown-up and together. They stand at the bar in the kitchen and Shawn winces as Amy cleans up his hand, sprays it with antiseptic and then wraps it in gauze.

"I'm not even going to ask how that happened," she says and he gives her a little smile in gratitude.

"You want coffee?" he asks.

"That would be lovely."

Happy for the distraction, he busies himself setting up the coffeemaker while Amy looks around the kitchen. She runs her hand across the granite countertop and then begins examining the contents of their fridge and pantry.

"No wonder you're so skinny," she says, "You boys have nothing of nutritional value in here."

"Sorry," Shawn says since he doesn't know what else to say. Then he gives her a little tour of the apartment, which she seems to have been waiting for. He's glad that Cecilia came earlier in the day and so the place is as picked-up and spotless as it ever is. He leads her through the living room, the funny little old-fashioned dining room they almost never use, the bathroom, and the office.

"That's all my fault," he says, gesturing at the mess of papers and books that Cecilia's under strict orders not to disturb. "Cory mostly works at work."

"I'm so glad you were able to find that job for him," Amy says, "I've never seen him so happy about his work before."

Shawn smiles but can't bring himself to agree verbally. He's spent a lot of time lately wishing he had let Cory find some other job.

He leads her onto the bedrooms then, feeling slightly embarrassed because he's sure she must be thinking that this is where they have sex (it is, of course-most of the time) but, mercifully, she just comments on how nice it is that they have such a big closet. In Sadie's room, Amy brings her hand to her heart and coos over all the little girl touches.

As he shows her back into the living room, he thinks about how small and cramped this place must seem compared to Amy's beautiful house with the big lawn and the trees. That place always felt like a mansion to Shawn. In his lifetime, Shawn had moved from public housing to a one-bedroom mobile home to a shared dorm room to a series of tiny and shabby shared New York apartments, with stops on other people's couches and park benches in-between. The apartment he owns now still seems incredibly enormous and opulent to him. Sometimes he just sits there and marvels at the number of rooms and the fact that they have a dishwasher. But he's aware that Cory thinks they should be someplace fancier; the way Cory had gone on and on about how nice Tom and Kyle's place was sort of a give-away. Shawn figures that Amy must feel the same way, that if Shawn's so rich and successful, he ought to have a place that reflects this. He wonders if she thinks he's foolish for being so afraid to spend, if she sees right through him as a white trash kid who suddenly got some money and has no idea what to do with it. Cory's always teasing him about hoarding his money in his mattress. He must look really stupid.

"It's perfect," Amy declares, "What a nice place." God, Shawn could kiss her.

When they have coffee, Amy does most of the talking, telling him all the things that have been happening back home in Philadelphia to the Matthews family. She talks about Morgan's adventures in grad school and her new boyfriend (they're not crazy about him) and Josh's Little League games this past summer and, of course, Eric's new baby. Shawn listens to it all with interest-it's certainly a different take than the bits and pieces about everything he gets from Cory-but as she talks, a heavy feeling of sadness returns to him.

Hearing about the happy, perfect Matthews family makes him feel lonelier and more fucked-up than ever. The guy he loves most in the world thinks he's an untrustworthy drug addict. The mother of his child says she's afraid to let his daughter see him. His agent thinks he's a deadbeat. He can't write. He can't sleep. He can't eat. He looks like shit. Nobody trusts him. Nobody believes he's capable of doing anything but fucking up. All that time, all that work, and here he still is, a trashy little fuck-up plotting to run away again. He's so tired of it all. He's just so, so tired.

Then Amy finishes up whatever she's just been talking about, gives Shawn's arm a comforting squeeze, and says, "We're all just so proud of you, Shawn."

And that's when, to Shawn's horror, he finally loses it and bursts into tears.


	6. How Lucky We All Are

Amy Matthews is bewildered as Shawn Hunter, out of nowhere, just breaks down into tears in front of her. Her mother instinct kicks in and she holds out her arms. He goes to her and sobs into her bosom as she rubs his back soothingly and, for all the world, he could be once again that seven-year-old boy that Cory dragged home. His tears are not completely surprising, though. She could tell this whole time that something was bothering him, even if he was putting up a good front. She knows him as well as she knows her own kids.

"Shhh...sweetie, it's all right," she says in that mindless, soothing way, and he shakes in her arms with a fresh sob. He is crying the way someone who has been trying not to cry for a very long time does. The carefully constructed damn has finally burst and the tears are just going to keep coming fast and furious until they've all run out.

She continues to rub his back and wonders just how many times in her life she's done this for her children? With four kids (five if you count Shawn who might as well have always been counted), there is always someone who needs a little comfort and reassurance, no matter how old they get. The broken toys and broken hearts and broken dreams of growing up are never ending.

Eventually, he slows down and starts taking jerky breaths. Amy sits him up to help with this and he immediately starts apologizing between gasps.

"I'm sorry...This is so embarrassing...I'm really sorry...This is so stupid..."

"Shhh," she hushes him again and pushes his hair out of his face. She gets him some kleenex and starts mopping at his cheeks. He makes a face as she does this, but Amy can't help it; she is a mom through and through and this is what moms do. She lets him take the kleenex and blow his own nose as a compromise and goes to get a glass of water. She comes back and makes him drink it and then if finally feels like he's gotten it all out of his system.

"You want to tell me about it?" Amy asks.

He heaves a long, shuddering sigh. She can see him weighing his options of what to tell her and how much. He has always been fairly private and she imagines his newly changed relationship with her son is complicating further what Shawn feels is or is not okay to tell her. He opts ultimately for the vague. "It's just been a bad day. Bad week, really. Bad month. Oh, god, everything's just shit right now."

She puts a hand on his knee and waits to see if he's going to elaborate. When he says no more, she informs him that she's going to make them something to eat. He doesn't protest and she leaves him sitting there passive, sad, and exhausted.

In the kitchen she finds that they really have not left her much to work with. The eggs are past their date but not by much and she figures they're still useable. The milk is off but there's a carton of half and half that smells fine. And the bread is stale, but that can actually work to her advantage. She takes all these ingredients out, grabs cinnamon and vanilla from the pantry and starts throwing it all together.

When she returns to the living room with two plates of French toast, Shawn looks much more composed. His fake smile is almost completely reconstructed. They eat quietly for a few minutes and then he says something around a mouth of food.

"What was that?" she asks.

He swallows. "I said I've missed your cooking."

She is pleased but brushes off the compliment. "It's nothing. Just milk and eggs, really."

He shakes his head and shovels in another bite. "You never made anything that didn't taste great."

She smiles and transfers some her French toast onto his plate. "Well, have some more, then."

He frowns as if she's tricked him into something, but he does as he is told. Amy wonders briefly what happened to that hungry kid who used to help himself to the Matthews family food before it'd even made the journey from grocery bag to pantry. That he's been replaced with this weary, anxious young man feels almost like a failure on her part.

Amy sips her coffee and runs through her options of topics to bring up. She knows he needs to talk, but she also knows she has to be strategic. Cory as a topic is definitely out. Whatever's going on between them at the moment (she suspects they're having a fight of some sort) is not on the table for discussion, especially not with Amy. And she's hesitant to bring up his books because she knows Cory mentioned the last time he was home that Shawn was struggling with some writer's block. So she takes a stab at the last thing she can think of. "How's your little girl?" she asks.

 _And that might have been the wrong topic_ , Amy thinks as she notices his shoulders stiffen. But then a big smile breaks across his face and he starts telling her about Sadie. He tells her all about what she's like, how she's so smart and funny and strange, and about all the things they do together, the amusing things she says to him sometimes. There is so much obvious affection and pride in his voice as he speaks that Amy can't help but find herself smiling as she listens.

Then his tone and expression change drastically as he starts telling her about the parent-teacher conference this morning and his rocky relationship with Anna in general. There is a lot of pain and anger in his voice. Amy listens and tries to understand it from both sides. On the one hand, she can see how badly Shawn wants to be a good father and be involved in his daughter's life and why he finds it so frustrating and demoralizing to be met with such resistance to his attempts. He doesn't say it, but she can see how Shawn is taking this extremely personally; he's talking about it as if it's a repudiation of him as a human being. On the other hand, Amy can also understand Anna's fear and reluctance to share her daughter's care with someone she doesn't trust, for valid (if perhaps outdated) reason. She's being fiercely protective, as any mother would be. Carefully, Amy tries to explain to Shawn that Anna's behavior, while unfair, is to be expected.

"You just have to give her time," Amy assures him, "This is new for her and really scary."

"But I'm trying so hard," he says and it's obvious that this day or week or month or whatever has nearly broken him. He looks so tired.

Amy sighs. "But that's what being a parent is. You just keep trying hard and nobody appreciates it, but you keep doing it and, eventually, if you're lucky, good things come of it. But you never get to stop trying hard."

She puts her arm around him then and he leans into her again. "I'm sorry," he says almost inaudibly.

"For what?"

"For, you know, messing up Cory's life. I know you guys must hate me."

He couldn't have shocked her more if he had kicked her. "Shawn! Why would we ever hate you? How could you even think that?"

He gives a helpless little shrug, his eyes glittering with tears again. Amy hugs him hard and kisses the top of his head, determined that she will never let such ideas stand in his mind. She continues speaking with indignation. "And who says Cory's life is messed up? He's happier than I've seen him in years. And I'm very proud of him."

"It's not what you guys wanted. I know. You must be disappointed."

"Do you realize how insulting it is that you would think that of us?" Amy asks and squeezes him tighter to reassure him that she's not actually angry, "I'm not glad for how things went with Topanga, that's not what I'm saying. She didn't deserve that. But I am so relieved to see Cory happy again. And you. It's important to us that you're happy too, Shawn. We love you and we care about you. If happiness for both you boys is to be together, then that's wonderful. How lucky we all are that it's that easy."

"Mr. Matthews must not be too happy, though. He never liked me."

"That's nonsense, Shawn, and you know it."

He doesn't reply, but he also doesn't argue this statement. He just continues to lean against her and she continues to pet his hair absently and think about how he is not at all the same boy she last saw nine years ago and yet is somehow exactly the same.

"You know," she says after a while,"I can still remember very clearly one afternoon when I came home and I could see the two of you sitting on the bench-remember that old bench in the back yard? Well, the two of you were sitting there and I could see you from where I was in the car. You weren't doing anything. Just talking and laughing and I thought to myself, 'Those boys adore each other.'"

Shawn smiles at this. "Did you ever suspect?"

"Of course I did. We all did. And we're all happy now to know that we weren't just crazy."

Shawn laughs. Then he takes a deep breath and says, "You're a really good mom."

And Amy feels like her heart might just burst. This fiasco of a shopping trip into New York City was worth it just to hear that.

* * *

Cory is overcome with relief when he gets home that night and finds that there's a light on in the apartment already.

"Shawn?" he calls out, dropping his things in a pile, not even stopping to hang up his coat. "Shawnie?"

There's no reply and Cory feels his heart sinking as quickly as it had begun to soar while he makes his way through the empty kitchen, empty living room, and empty bedrooms. Then he realizes there's another light on in the office. He pokes his head in and is delighted to see Shawn on his laptop, his headphones blaring. Shawn is home. Shawn is writing again. All is right with the world.

Shawn looks up and startles a little to see him. He takes off the headphones, setting them down just as Cory practically tackles him.

"Shawnie! Oh, Shawnie, I'm so sorry. I'm so stupid. Oh, Shawnie." It all just pours out of him as he squeezes the life out of Shawn and covers him with kisses. It takes a minute before he realizes that Shawn isn't kissing back and that he is completely stiff in Cory's arms. They will not be making up that easily.

Cory releases him reluctantly and sits down beside him. "I'm so glad you're back. It's not right without you here."

Shawn doesn't respond to that. He just turns his eyes back to his laptop.

"Did you eat?" Cory asks.

"Yeah," Shawn says, still keeping his eyes fixed on the screen, "I ate with your mom."

"My mom?"

"Yup. Said she called you."

"Oh." Cory remembers the call he ignored now. Then he feels a little ill, remembering what he was doing when she called. "I didn't pick up because I was working," he says quickly, "I had no idea...why was she here?"

"She was supposed to meet someone for shopping. She was already on the train when her friend canceled."

Cory nods and takes this in. "I'll have to call her and apologize," he says. "Did you tell her I was working late?"

"Yup."

"Well, thanks for keeping her company, I guess. Sorry if that was a drag."

Shawn continues to stare cooly at his laptop screen and gives no response. He is freezing him out still. Cory frowns and looks at the screen as well. He's a little disappointed to see that Shawn's not actually been writing. He's been looking at stuff online. He has about a dozen different tabs open for what looks to be the websites of various private grade schools.  _Anna_ , Cory thinks. She made such a big fuss about not wanting any of Shawn's money and now she's pushing for private school? That didn't last long.

"Hey," Cory says then, noticing the bandage on Shawn's hand, "What happened?"

Shawn glances down at his hand as if he's forgotten about it, then shrugs. "Lost my temper."

"About what?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Shawn..."

Shawn snaps his laptop shut and stands up to leave. "It's been a really long day, Cor. Just leave me alone." Then he pauses, having gotten a good look at Cory for the first time. "Where's your shirt?"

Cory looks down and is surprised to see that he's only wearing his undershirt. His shirt must still be in the sink at Tom's apartment. "Uh," he hesitates, "I spilled something on it. I left it at the office."

It's obvious that Shawn knows that Cory's lying. Shawn doesn't say anything, though. He leaves Cory in the office feeling guilty.

But something compels Cory and he leaps up, runs after him. He corners Shawn in the hallway and puts his arms on the wall to either side of Shawn's body, caging him in. Cory leans in close so that their faces are almost touching. In the dimness of the hallway, Shawn's blue eyes look black. Then Cory speaks softly but directly.

"I can't tell you enough how sorry I am. How wrong I was for what I said the other night, for what I thought."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. I'm so sorry, Shawn. I wish so much I could take it back. You have no idea how scared I am of losing you to that. It's like this great big threat always lurking in the background. So when I thought what I did the other night, you have to understand that was me being scared and I didn't-"

"You didn't trust me."

Cory is quiet, letting the truth of that accusation sink in. He  _didn't_  trust Shawn. He let himself believe the worst of him. How did that happen so easily?

Shawn looks up at him, practically glaring from beneath a shock of messy hair. Cory knows Shawn hates it when Cory uses his slightly larger size against him. Shawn does not like being reminded that he's not a big guy and he does not like feeling trapped. But Cory continues to keep him pinned there because just for a second Shawn looks like he did in that video, the one where he was babbling incoherently and laughing and telling Tom he loved him.  _Loved_  him. And that makes Cory think of the other video and his hands ball into fists against the wall.

"You're mine," Cory growls.

Shawn rolls his eyes.

"No," Cory says, "You belong to me. You always have."

"Will you please let me go to bed? I'm so tired, Cory."

"No," Cory repeats, "I'm not letting you go. That's the point. You don't run away, okay? I mess up, you stay here and we figure out how to fix it. Not I mess up, you go. It doesn't work like that anymore."

Shawn sets his jaw defiantly, but doesn't say anything.

So Cory continues. "You belong to me and no one else. And this is home and that's not anywhere else."

Finally, finally, a tiny crack appears in Shawn's icy expression. "I don't like being mad at you," Shawn says.

"And I don't like you being mad at me. But you have every right to be. I screwed up. Big time. But I'm gonna fix it."

"You gonna make me magically not be a fuck-up anymore that nobody trusts?" Shawn smiles wryly.

Then Cory feels his eyes welling up with near-tears. "Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

Shawn doesn't answer, just closes his eyes and when Cory kisses him, Shawn kisses him back. It is a triumph, feeling Shawn's warm tongue in his mouth again, welcoming Cory back. Cory presses his body into him and takes kisses greedily, as if he's trying to devour Shawn as quickly as possible, before anyone else gets a chance to snatch him off Cory's plate. Eventually, Shawn has to physically push him off just so he can gasp for air.

"Sorry," Cory says.

Shawn just gives him a little smile and leads him out of the hallway and to the bedroom. Once in there, Cory immediately starts to take off Shawn's pajamas, but Shawn stops him.

"I already took my pill a while ago," he explains apologetically, "I'm gonna be out any minute."

"Okay," Cory says, doing his best to hide his disappointment. He changes into his own pajamas while Shawn gets under the covers. Then Cory switches out the light and comes to join him. He scoots up close and spoons Shawn tightly. How long has it been since he held him? Too fucking long.

"Where did you go when you left here?" Cory asks.

"A really nice hotel. I went swimming in the pool every night."

This amuses Cory. Shawn believes that any hotel that has a pool is a "really nice" hotel. Cory remembers him saying the same thing about a roach-infested Motel 6 they stayed in on their road trip Freshman year of college. However, this being Manhattan and not rural Pennsylvania, it probably was a really nice hotel. Cory's surprised Shawn shelled out for it, to be honest. If it's not something that Sadie or Cory are asking for, Shawn has a very hard time parting with his money. He must have really been pissed.

"I met a cute girl in the hot tub," Shawn says sleepily and Cory can tell from the tone of his voice that he's smiling.

Cory wants to ask if he fucked her, but instead he asks, "Did you kiss her?"

Shawn allows a dramatic pause so that Cory will think he did, then he says, "No. I think she wanted me to, though."

"Of course she did."

"Everybody wantsss me," Shawn murmurs, already starting to slur. Shawn always gets a little silly and slurry right before the sleeping pills manage to drag him under. Cory's come to be quite fond of the Shawn who exists only in those few minutes every night. He's a sweeter, less inhibited version of himself.

"Everybody wantsss me," Shawn repeats, "Nobody wantsss t'keep me..."

"Oh, shut up," Cory says, holding him tighter and planting a territorial kiss on his neck, "I'm keeping you forever."

* * *

Shawn wakes too early, but once he's up, there's no going back to sleep. So he lays there and tries to make some resolute plans for the day that is to come. He will write. He will call his agent. He will call Anna. He will convince her that they need to start looking at private schools together and that she needs to stop hating him. He will eat three square meals. He will be productive and positive. He will like himself. Then he sighs and turns over, knowing the likelihood of any of this happening today is not all that good.

He gazes at Cory is the early morning twilight. It's getting later in the year and taking longer to get light, Shawn notes. He can barely make out Cory's features; he's more just a collection of shadows and planes in the vague shape of Cory. And a silhouette of curls against the pillow.

_Why did he lie last night?_

Cory didn't have his shirt when he came home. And then he lied about it. If he really did spill something on it and left it at work, there'd be no reason to lie. But Shawn  _knows_  he wasn't being honest. Cory is a terrible liar. So, why lie?

But this early in the morning, with Cory back beside him again, Shawn decides not to care. It doesn't matter. It's warm and nice under the covers and they're together again and they're going to get through this and even if Cory doesn't trust Shawn, he loves Shawn, and that's a lot better than nothing.

Shawn spoons up behind him and Cory sighs in his sleep and moves more tightly into his hold. Shawn inhales the scent of Cory from the space where his neck and shoulders meet; he has always smelled like safety to Shawn. Security, maybe, is a better way to put it. The scent of Cory always brings Shawn back instantly to the Matthews' beautiful house where nothing ever went wrong and everybody loved each other.

He slides his hand across Cory's chest slowly-no reason not to take his time. For all that curly hair on his head, Cory has a surprisingly hairless chest and this has always amused Shawn. But it's all right. The better to show off what a nice chest it is. Shawn lingers there a while, then moves down to Cory's belly. He's glad that Cory's hasn't whittled himself away too much in the last few weeks spent at the gym. Shawn likes him with a little bit of pudge, though he would never tell him this. It's just so fucking cute.

He's totally hard now, though, and he can feel his erection digging into the back of Cory's thigh. So Shawn swallows a few times and tries to find his voice.

"Hey," Shawn whispers, gently shaking Cory awake, "You should suck me off."

"Good morning to you too," Cory mutters and pulls another pillow over his head.

"You said you wanted to make it up to me. That would be a good start."

"Fuck. Fine." Cory throws off the sheets, pushes Shawn down onto the mattress and gets to work. He's too annoyed and sleepy for foreplay so it's a pretty utilitarian affair, but Shawn doesn't care. Cory's gotten so good at this.

"Oh, shit..." Shawn throws his head back and moans as Cory tightens his mouth around him. "Oh, Jesus...Jesus, Jesus Christ...Fuck..."

And then he can't even form coherent words anymore; it's just a series of squeaks and whimpers as Shawn loses even that level of awareness and starts to drown under the waves of pleasure. He gasps and grabs at the sheets, trying to catch his breath and just getting fucking pummeled by the weight of how good it all feels. Then, "Fuck, oh, fuck," he comes.

He lays there afterward, panting, just a puddle of a human being. He's only dimly aware that Cory's left the room and returned with a warm washcloth to clean him. Then he does so tenderly. Cory is a goddamn angel.

Eventually, Shawn rolls over and puts his head on Cory's chest. He lays there blissfully while Cory runs his fingers through Shawn's hair. He's often thought this must be why dogs like getting petted. It just feels so damn nice. It's almost worth having his hair in his face all the time and looking like a teenager if it means Cory plays with his hair.

"Am I better than Tom?" Cory asks.

Shawn opens one eye. Why the hell is Cory talking about Tom right now? What a way to spoil the mood. "In what sense?"

"You know. At  _that_."

"Giving head?"

"Yeah."

"God, yes."

"What do I do that's better?"

Shawn tells himself to be patient. This is all still fairly new for Cory and god knows he's insecure about starting at it all so late in life. "Well," Shawn says, looking up at him, "Tom was a selfish prick, so he wasn't very good at the giving part. He was more of a taker. You can tell when somebody's not that into making you feel good, you know? Just trying to get through it so they can get to the part where  _they_  get to be on the receiving end. Tom was the king of that."

"Okay."

"Plus, it helps when you're in love with the person."

That makes Cory smile. Satisfied that he has successfully eased Cory's insecurity, Shawn closes his eyes again and nudges his head back under Cory's hand, like a cat asking to be petted. Cory obliges and starts running his fingers through Shawn's hair again. Shawn makes a little involuntary purring sound in his throat. He really must've been somebody's pet in a past life.

"Do you ever miss him?"

"Who? Tom?"

"Yes."

Why is Cory so determined to talk about stupid Tom? God, Shawn's sick of hearing about him. "No," Shawn says firmly,"Why would you even think that?"

"Well, I just...I wonder if you don't miss messing around with...other people."

"Why would I? I have you."

"Yeah, but you don't miss the variety at all? I mean, you're used to fooling around with a lot of different people."

"Being a slut, you mean?" Shawn tries not to let his amusement be obvious in his voice. Cory's lucky he's so cute because the way he talks about sex sometimes like he's still fourteen years old is kind of ridiculous. With anyone else, Shawn would find it kind of sad, but with Cory it's almost endearing.

"Well, I wouldn't say it like that."

"No, you'd just think it. Come on, babe, we all know I was a slut. You don't have to be so  _Cory Matthews_  about saying it."

"Fine, whatever. Just...are you sure you don't get bored just being with me? You don't think about what it would be like to be with other people sometimes?"

Shawn sits up and looks him straight-on. "What are you trying to get at?"

Cory bows his head slightly so they're not making eye contact. His ears are bright pink. "Nothing. I'm just asking."

Shawn puts his hands on Cory's shoulders and forces him to meet his eyes. "I'm very happy with the thought of fucking you and only you for the rest of my life."

Cory gives him a smile and Shawn feels relieved. "Come on," he says, "You better start getting ready for work."

Shawn leaves Cory to wash and dress and wanders into the kitchen to investigate breakfast options. He puts on the coffee and starts taking inventory. How the heck did Mrs. Matthews make French toast appear out of this sorry selection? Shawn pulls out the trash can and starts dumping expired items into it. Amy Matthews must be magic. Shawn's always sort of suspected this. Now he knows it must be at least half-true.

When Cory emerges dressed for work, Shawn has a mug of coffee and a pudding cup waiting for him. "Really?" Cory asks.

"I'll go shopping today. And who are you to be complaining about having pudding, anyway?"

"Chocolate's not really a breakfast pudding."

Shawn rolls his eyes and peels the top off his own pudding cup. He offers the top to Cory to lick, as is their custom. They eat their non-breakfast breakfast pudding companionably. Everything else crappy in Shawn's life fades away a little bit. He's just happy to be back and not fighting with Cory anymore, eating pudding cups like they're back in the dorm. Life looks a lot better this morning than it did yesterday.

"Oh, hey," Cory says, as he finishes his pudding, "Have you seen my watch?"

Shawn shakes his head. "It's not on the dresser?"

"No. I couldn't find it. Maybe it fell behind. Would you mind having a look today if you get a chance?"

"Sure."

Cory drains his coffee in a few successive gulps and stands up. "Okay, I gotta run."

Shawn accepts a kiss on the cheek and then Cory gathers his stuff and heads out. Alone again, Shawn takes his time drinking his coffee. It's just him and the apartment. It feels like him  _versus_  the apartment, one more day battling the loneliness and thoughts he doesn't want to think about. He sips slowly and tries to steel himself. Today will be the day he wins that war, right? Sure. Why not?

* * *

Cory is practically dancing down the sidewalk as he heads for the subway. Shawn is back. Shawn's on the road to forgiving him. Shawn still loves him. Shawn doesn't want to be with Tom. Shawn's not feeling smothered by their monogamy and secretly dreaming of other people. Shawn doesn't want Tom; Shawn wants Cory. Shawn loves Cory. Shawn is Cory's. Shawn is back and Shawn thinks Cory gives great head and Shawn loves Cory and nobody else.

His mood carries on through a whole morning's worth of projects and even working beside Tom for several hours doesn't throw him off that much. His good spirits find their way into his work, as well; Cory is on an impressive roll, moving quickly and successfully through a whole series of edits they'd previously found problematic. As they're breaking for lunch, Tom pats him on the back.

"You're the best thing that's happened to this place in years," he tells Cory.

Cory beams as he unwraps his sandwich. While they eat lunch, Tom keeps looking at him, as if he wants to say something but is hesitant. Then, finally, he seems to decide to just go for it.

"Hey, Matthews, you ever been to Seattle?"

"My brother got married there. On a ship." Cory has to stop himself from actually shuddering, recalling the disastrous party. It was a nice city, though. He remembers looking out at the Sound with Topanga, how beautiful she'd looked in the setting sun. The memory is bittersweet now.

"Well, you know the conference is going to be there this year."

Cory nods. The conference, the big one in their field, has occupied at least 80% of the conversation around the office for the past few weeks. It's the main event where they find and poach new clients.

"Do you think you'd want to come with me?"

Well, this is news. The company only sends two people from their office every year. It's always Tom and somebody else. Somebody higher up than Cory. Somebody who's been here a lot longer and knows the industry inside and out. Not somebody who just started at an entry level job here less than a year ago.

Tom laughs at Cory's bewildered expression. "I've already mentioned it to some folks and they all thought it was a good idea," he says, "So don't worry. We all have a lot more confidence in you than you do."

"I just...I don't know anybody."

"That's kind of the point of going to these things. So you get to know people."

"I don't..."

Tom holds out a hand to stop Cory before he can protest further. "Listen," Tom says, "You don't have to make up your mind now. Just think about it. Tell Shawn about it. See if he's interested. It could be a nice trip for you guys. Get out of this place for a few days."

That thought subdues Cory's anxiety a little bit. He hadn't considered that Shawn could come with. That really could be nice. Aside from that one afternoon at the beach this past summer, they haven't really been anywhere together. They could even stay at one of those "really nice" hotels with a pool. Shawn would get a kick out of that.

"Is Kyle coming?" Cory asks, warming to the idea of this trip already.

Tom shakes his head. "He can't take off work. He's pretty bummed."

Cory nods and takes another bite of his sandwich.

"Think about it and let me know, okay?" Tom says, standing up to head out.

"Yeah. I will. Thanks, Tom."

Tom smiles and ruffles Cory's hair as he leaves. Cory is a little taken aback by this gesture of familiarity. Only Shawn does that. But his happiness at being picked to represent their company at the conference overrides his dismay. He spends the rest of his lunch break looking at pictures of the conference hotel while he finishes his sandwich. He can't wait to get home and tell Shawn about it.

* * *

Shawn staves off his thoughts as long as he can by keeping busy that morning. He hits the grocery store first to resupply and stock up. It's a Sadie weekend and this cheers him up substantially. He catches himself smiling at the juice boxes and string cheeses as he drops them in the cart. It puts him in enough of a happy mood that he talks himself into heading down the dietary supplement aisle. Shawn stares at the shakes there for a long time, trying to decide if he should add some of the dreaded canned drinks to his cart.

On the one hand, it feels like to put the shakes in his cart is to admit defeat, to admit that he's heading back to where he was all those months back, one of the lowest points of his life. On the other hand, he'd worked up the nerve to weigh himself at the hotel gym the other night and he knows that he really isn't far off from that low point at all. The smart thing would be to put the cans in the cart and be proactive about it all, stop it before it gets that bad again. It hurts his pride, though. He doesn't want to admit that he is failing at something as simple as taking care of himself.

Then he looks all the Sadie food in his cart, all those happy little tokens of her. He thinks about the things Mrs. Matthews said about being a parent, about trying hard even when it seems like no one appreciates it. This really can't be about his pride anymore. With a sigh, he lifts a carton of canned shakes off the shelf and dumps them in the cart.

When he gets back to the apartment, Shawn sips a shake grimly and composes an email to Anna. He includes links to some of the private schools he thinks they should consider and some additional articles he feels help make his case. It takes forever to write the email because he keeps rewriting it, changing his language, trying to make it as neutral and non-argumentative as possible. He gets angry all over again just thinking about it all, but he does his best not to let that show in the writing.

After he sends the email, the quietness of the apartment sets in once more. He's already keyed up about the Anna stuff and his mind starts to wander onto other stuff he'd rather not think about. The book. His agent. How he's still a little hurt and mad at Cory...

"Stop it," he tells himself out loud and, looking for something to distract himself, he decides to retrieve Cory's watch from behind the dresser.

Shawn spends far too long trying unsuccessfully to push the dresser away from the wall before he realizes he can take out the drawers and move it much more easily. Once he does this, though, he finds there's nothing back there but dust bunnies, some loose change, and a gum wrapper.

He sits down in the dusty spot where the dresser was and leans back against the wall, panting. He just has no fucking stamina these days. While he tries to catch his breath and not think too much about what a shameful weakling he's become, he gazes over at their unmade bed and thinks about their activities there this morning. That was nice. But then he thinks about the things Cory was asking him afterwards, all that stuff about Tom and wanting 'variety' by fucking other people. What the hell was Cory going on about? God, he couldn't have been...

No. No way. There's absolutely no way that was Cory's awkward, roundabout way of suggesting a threesome. Shawn laughs out loud at this notion. No, no, no. Not vanilla Cory. But...maybe? Maybe vanilla Cory's really taken with this whole new "I like to fuck men" thing after spending almost twenty years trying to convince himself that he didn't. Maybe vanilla Cory's wanting to go a little wild, explore this whole new sexuality now that he finally can. Maybe Cory is itching to see what it's like to fuck around with men who aren't Shawn.

Shawn frowns at this thought. It makes sense. Poor Cory, after all those years not being able to be who he wants to be, to experience sex the way he actually likes to experience it...that's a lot of pent-up desire. And now he's back in another pretty vanilla monogamous relationship without ever having gotten to sow his wild gay oats at all...it feels almost cruel.

Shawn thumps his head against the wall a few times. Why didn't he ever think about that? How selfish is he that it never even occurred to him that Cory might want to live a little before being shackled down to dumb old fuck-up Shawn? But, Jesus, how do you fix that?

As he's thinking this, Shawn is startled by the sound of the intercom out in the hall. He climbs to his feet and goes to answer it. The doorman informs him that there's a man named Kyle Chambers to see him. It takes Shawn a second to figure out who Kyle Chambers is-Tom's boyfriend. Why he would be showing up here is a mystery, but Shawn tells the doorman to send him on up. When he lets Kyle into the apartment, the guy has on the same sour expression he wore all night at the dinner party. Shawn fights the urge to just push him right back out of the apartment. What an unlikeable creep this guy is.

"I won't stay long," Kyle says, stepping past Shawn into the kitchen, "I just wanted to drop something off."

He thrusts a shopping bag into Shawn's hands. Shawn looks at Kyle warily then reaches into the bag. He pulls out a wrinkled mens dress shirt. He recognizes it immediately as one of Cory's. He puts it over his arm and reaches back into the bag; there's still something small and heavy at the bottom of it. It's a watch. Cory's watch. Shawn flips it over just be certain although he knows. Sure enough, the inscription on the back is still visible.  _To My Best Friend Cory._

Shawn looks up at Kyle, confused.

"I found those in my bedroom," Kyle says, "When I got home last night."

Shawn says nothing. He stares at the watch in his hand. Why would Cory's things have been in Tom and Kyle's bedroom? Would Cory have given Tom his shirt and watch for some reason? Or was he over there and left them? Why would he have been over there if that's the case? And why would he have reason to take off his watch and shirt? And then lie about it to Shawn when he got home last night?

"And I think you should know," Kyle continues, his voice growing a little nasal and shaky, "Tom's been looking at pictures of you. And videos.'

"What are you talking about?" Shawn asks sharply. His stomach feels like it's going to turn itself inside-out.

"He still has a lot of photos and videos from when you were together. He looked at them yesterday. I went through his history on his computer this morning, all his recently opened files, all his emails."

"I don't understand." Shawn leans back against the breakfast bar for support. He feels dizzy.

"I don't either. Maybe his way of getting to you is through Cory. Maybe he wants to get back at you. Maybe he wants to fuck you and your boyfriend is the next best thing." Kyle's voice is rushed with anger. It feels very much like he's been thinking about this since last night and all his twisted, terrified thoughts are now tumbling out in accusation form.

"No," Shawn shakes his head, stopping his own thoughts as much as Kyle's, "None of this means anything. I'm not going to jump to conclusions."

And then Kyle gives him a pitiful look, like Shawn is just some naive idiot and Kyle feels sorry for him. "Suit yourself," Kyle tells him as he heads for the door, "Like I said, I just thought you should know."

Shawn watches passively as Kyle leaves the apartment, the whole confrontation having taking less than two minutes. Shawn climbs up onto one of the bar stools and rests his head on the crook of his arm, the granite countertop is cool against his cheek. He sets the watch down in front of his nose and gazes at it as it innocently ticks away the seconds.


	7. Boys Go to Jupiter to Get More Stupider

When Cory gets back to the apartment that night, he can hear a ruckus while unlocking the door. As he steps inside he winces. There is shrieking. At the one particular pitch that only little girls are capable of hitting. And it's not happy shrieking.

"No! Nooooo!"

Cory follows the sound of the shrieking into the dining room. Shawn is standing behind one of the dining room chairs, holding Sadie under the arms (he has clearly lifted her out of the chair) and she is screaming bloody murder and kicking at him. Before them, the table is a mess of turned over dinner plates, broken glasses, bright orange macaroni, and spilled fruit punch.

"Sadie, stop it," Shawn says and she replies by kicking him hard in the ribs. She kicks him three more times successively and he almost drops her. As he bends and tries to reposition his grip on her she shrieks and struggles harder. Then she gets an idea and bites down hard on his forearm.

"Mother fucker!" Shawn shouts as he drops her.

"I hate you!" She screeches, scrambling away from him and pushing past Cory. "I hate you and you're stupid and mean and you shouldn't swear!" She yells and then slams her bedroom door behind her.

Shawn stands there stunned, rubbing his arm. Then he steps forward and starts sopping up the spilled punch with a couple of napkins. Cory darts into the kitchen and returns with the paper towels and starts helping to clean up the punch.

"What was that about?" Cory asks as Shawn piles the drenched napkins onto one of the plates.

Shawn sighs. "I served fish sticks."

Cory starts plucking the aforementioned fish sticks off of the table and stacking them back on the other plate. "And?"

"And she realized that they were once fish like her fish. In the aquarium."

"Okay..."

"But I said she still had to eat them. And then it just sorta all went to hell from there. Now she hates me."

Cory starts picking up the pieces of the two broken drinking glasses. "It's just a tantrum. Don't take it personally."

Shawn doesn't say anything to that, which means he is taking it personally. Cory moves to put a hand on his shoulder but Shawn sidesteps out of his reach. He keeps his head bowed as he scoops up macaroni and plops it on top of the fish sticks.

"Why'd you push it, anyway?" Cory asks, "Who cares if she eats the fish sticks?"

Shawn's jaw tightens and Cory can see that this is not really about the fish sticks. Cory continues picking up the shards of glass, waiting for Shawn's answer.

Finally, as he cleans up the last of the scattered meal, he says quietly, "If you're lucky enough to have food, you should eat it."

Cory doesn't point out the irony of this statement to Shawn. It's one thing to play the 'I grew up without enough to eat so my kids better appreciate what they have' card, but it's another thing to play it looking the way Shawn does right now with the particular problems that he has. Cory figures Shawn's probably aware of the contradiction already. It's actually, Cory realizes, most likely at the root of Shawn's determination on the matter.

Then Shawn abandons the clean-up and goes to Sadie's door. Cory hears him tap lightly. "Sadie?"

"Go away!"

"Now, Sadie, don't-"

"I want to go home!"

 _Crap_ , Cory thinks.  _Why'd she have to say that?_  Immediately, Shawn gives up on making peace. He returns to the table long enough to pile up the dishes and abandoned food and carry them into the kitchen. Cory hears him scrape the food into the garbage and load the dishwasher. Then he pokes his head back in the dining room.

"I'm gonna take a walk. Keep an eye on her?"

"Of course."

After Shawn has left, Cory finishes cleaning up the table, washes his hands and takes a deep breath. He'd forgotten it was a Sadie weekend. He'd been looking forward to coming home to a quiet evening of continuing to make up with Shawn. He feels way too tired to deal with this. Still, he will do his best.

He knocks on the door. "It's Cory. Can I come in?"

There's a pause, then Sadie unlocks the door and allows him into her bedroom, a grave expression on her face.

"Thanks," he says and takes a seat on the end of her bed. He watches her glare at him from a few paces away. How many times in his life has he been on the receiving end of that exact same expression with those exact same eyes? He pats the mattress beside him. "Come here a sec?"

Reluctantly, she takes a seat.

"Now, listen," he says, "I don't want to get in the middle of whatever you two are fighting about. That's between you and your dad. But throwing things and breaking stuff is not good. And hurting people is never okay. You can be mad at your dad, but you shouldn't hurt him. That's not nice. Okay?"

"Okay."

"So, can we promise no more kicking and biting people?"

Her voice is quiet, almost chastened. Almost. "Okay."

"Thank you. I appreciate that. And can we also agree not to say we hate people? Hate is a very strong word. I don't think you really hate your dad, do you?"

"Mom says she hates him."

Cory sighs. "Well, your mom can feel however she feels. But I don't think you hate your dad. Fish sticks aside, I think your dad's pretty nice. Don't you?"

Sadie shrugs. She is so very much Shawn's child. So Cory tries another tactic. "It would really hurt my feelings if you said you hated me. It would make me sad."

She tilts her head. "But I don't hate you."

"See, that makes me feel better. It's nice of you to let me know that. Would you say that you like me?"

"Yes, I like you."

"I like you too. I think you're a pretty cool kid. Doesn't that make you feel good to hear that?"

"I guess so."

"Well, if you like your dad, you should let him know that. It's not nice to tell him you hate him, even if you're really mad at him."

"Okay."

"Now, if I make something that's not fish sticks, will you have some dinner?"

Sadie nods and Cory pats her on the back. He leaves her room exhausted. How on Earth did his parents do this with four kids?

When Shawn returns a while later, Cory and Sadie are eating grilled cheese sandwiches and watching  _Meerkat Manor_. He gives Cory a grateful look and then sits down on the other side of Sadie. As the commercials come on, Shawn says to her, "I'm sorry I said you had to eat the fish sticks. That wasn't fair."

Sadie continues eating her sandwich for a minute, then she sits up and kisses Shawn's cheek. "I love you, Daddy." Then she returns to her sandwich as if this is just the most casual thing to have said.

Cory's fairly certain this is the first time Sadie's ever said this to Shawn. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Shawn puts an arm around Sadie squeezes her close. "I love you too."

Cory continues eating his sandwich and pretending he hasn't just witnessed a remarkable moment in their relationship. He is nearly overcome, though, with jealousy. Cory is the one who always wanted this, who wanted kids. It had always been part of the future he saw for himself. But he gave that up when he walked away from his marriage. He doesn't regret leaving Topanga and going with Shawn, but he does regret letting that part of the dream go. He's never going to have that now, have a kid who looks like him and baffles him and tells him she hates him then tells him she loves him and makes him feel prouder than anything. That part of Cory's dreams has died for him now and he mourns it. But it makes it so much harder when he sees Shawn getting to have these moments. Shawn,who never wanted kids, never wanted to be anybody's daddy, and very nearly walked away from being this girl's daddy, gets to have all of it. And Cory is happy for him, but he's also, when it comes down to it, bitterly jealous. It seems like it's getting harder and harder to keep a lid on that.

Later, after Sadie's had her bath and been put to bed, Shawn comes into the bedroom where Cory's finishing up work on his laptop. Shawn's been subdued all night, but Cory hasn't thought much of since it seems like Shawn's had a trying evening. As Shawn undresses for bed, Cory notes that he is bruised across his chest where Sadie kicked him.

"She really went to town on you," Cory says.

Shawn glances down at the bruises and continues undressing. "Takes after my dad," he smiles wryly.

Cory does not find this joke amusing so he changes the subject. "Thanks for getting my watch," he says, assuming that its appearance on the dresser tonight means it had indeed fallen behind it.

"No problem," Shawn replies and slides into bed. He takes two sleeping pills (Cory commands himself to pretend not to notice because he is working very hard on trusting Shawn now) and then rolls over with his back to Cory and lays down to sleep. Cory powers down his laptop, sets it on the bedside table and switches out the light.

"Goodnight," he says, and puts a kiss on Shawn's ear, slightly miscalculating his aim in the dark.

"Night," Shawn replies into his pillow.

* * *

Shawn is white-knuckling his way through toast and oatmeal while Sadie plays a Lego Star Wars game on Shawn's laptop in the living room. He is dreading Cory waking up. Between Cory working late and then Sadie's tantrum last night, Shawn has managed to spend very little time actually talking with Cory since Kyle's visit yesterday. And this is good because Shawn still isn't sure what to think. He wants to trust Cory. He doesn't want to think that there is any truth to Kyle's insinuations. But Shawn's also having a difficult time imagining any scenario in which Cory leaves his shirt and watch in Tom's bedroom, lies about it to Shawn, and  _isn't_  fooling around with Tom.

Shawn knows the best thing would be to just confront Cory about it, ask him point blank to explain the situation. But that also basically puts him in the position of accusing Cory of being unfaithful. And Shawn doesn't want to do that. What he  _wants_  is to trust Cory. It broke his heart that Cory didn't trust him when he got the idea in his head that Shawn had started using again. Shawn doesn't want to distrust Cory in the same way. But trusting  _anyone_  has always been hard for Shawn...The whole thing makes him feel sick.

"You eat slow," Sadie informs him as she enters the kitchen to get a juice box.

Shawn puts on a smile for her and helps her get the straw into the box. Then she hops up onto the stool beside him and sips happily while he plays with his oatmeal and admires her. Once when Shawn was a little boy Chet had told him he'd have made a pretty girl. Shawn had thought this was a mean thing to say at the time, and wrote Chet off as drunk and dumb. Now, though, Shawn thinks his dad was probably right. Sadie is a dead ringer for her father and yet she is the prettiest little thing. At least there's one good thing Shawn passed onto her in his genes.

God, he'd lost it last night when she'd refused to eat the fish sticks. Maybe it was the stress of Kyle's visit, or everything else that has been going on, or the fact that Shawn himself had been unable to swallow so much as a bite of fish stick up to that point, but suddenly he'd seen his beautiful little girl facing a lifetime of being as fucked up as he is and he flipped out. He turned into a drill sergeant of a parent, insisting that she was not to leave the table until she'd eaten her fish sticks, that just eating her macaroni wasn't good enough and that he didn't care if she stayed at the table all weekend she was going to eat the damn fish sticks. Needless to say, it hadn't gone over well. She is stubborn, just like him.

He'd pounded the sidewalk for half an hour after that convinced that he was absolutely teetering on the edge of a good old-fashioned nervous break-down. The desire to just start running and to find something that will stop him from feeling anything for a while was overwhelming. Eventually, he'd crouched down in an alley and called his NA sponsor Roger. Roger had talked him down enough that Shawn was able to go home and act normal again. And things had been better. Cory had gotten Sadie to stop hating Shawn and to eat a sandwich and Shawn's previous concerns had seemed all the more ridiculous and unhinged. And Sadie had said she loved him. Sadie  _loves_  him. Thinking about that almost eclipses everything else.

But Shawn's still feeling shaky and the one thing he's really not ready for is some horrible confrontation with Cory. Grimly, he takes another spoonful of oatmeal and wills himself not to chuck it back up as it settles heavy in his stomach.

Then Cory's shuffling into the kitchen, looking all sexy and sleepy in his pajama pants and Shawn just hates him for being so attractive right now. He glares at Cory's bare, strong shoulders as he walks into the little galley area in front of them to fetch his coffee. Shawn notes the way Cory's back muscles stretch and contract as he reaches up into a cabinet for a mug. Shawn has such mixed feelings about him at the moment, but one of those for sure is the feeling that he'd like to throw Cory up against a wall and have his way with him.

"Are you coming to the museum with us?" Sadie asks him hopefully.

"Nah," Cory looks apologetic, "Gotta go into work."

"On a Saturday again?" Shawn can't help the skeptical tone in his voice. Cory doesn't seem to catch it, though. He just shrugs while he sips his coffee.

"We have to get this project finished," he says.

 _Well, fuck it._  Shawn abandons his attempt at breakfast and scrapes the rest of his oatmeal into the garbage with sharp, angry strokes. He almost drops the bowl into the garbage as well, he's emptying it so forcefully, but he manages not to. Then he tosses it into the sink and purposefully "forgets" to run water over it because he knows that always pisses Cory off. He's about to toss out his toast too, but is interrupted by Sadie.

"Can we show Cory the song?"

Shawn's annoyance is swiftly replaced with embarrassment. "Oh, I don't-"

"What song?" Cory asks.

"It's nothing," Shawn says, but Sadie's already hopped off her stool and come around the breakfast bar to face him.

"Ready?" She asks.

Shawn cannot refuse her anything. Blushing, he holds up his hands, palms out. Sadie does the same with hers and they begin to clap their own hands together, then clap each others, building up a swift rhythm.

"My mother, your mother," Shawn begins to chant, feeling like a moron but not caring because he's enjoying the delight Sadie's taking in this,"live across the street, 1819 Bluebird Street, and every night they have a fight and this is what it sounds like..."

Then Sadie picks up the chant and they do it together, "Boys are rotten, made out of cotton, Girls are sexy, made out of Pepsi, Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, Girls go to Mars to get more candy bars..."

Shawn allows Sadie the last line which she screeches with relish, "Zippedy Zoppity Soda Poppity!" Then he throws in a few extra little hand jives and claps his knees and the bottom of each foot kicked up one at a time behind him. Sadie dissolves into giggles at this improvisational addition.

Cory laughs and applauds. "I remember the girls doing that on the playground. How did you remember all the words?"

"I was tapped into the Girls' Network, don't forget," Shawn says. He smoothes down Sadie's hair and then instructs her to go finish her game. After she leaves, he drains the remainder of his coffee and dumps the rest of his toast in the garbage. He doesn't even care that Cory's watching him do this. Fuck him and his concern. And fuck him and his sexy bare back.

"Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something," Cory says just as Shawn is about to go.

Shawn turns to face him reluctantly and plasters on a smile. "Mmm?"

"How'd you like to take a trip to Seattle? They want to send me out to the big conference with Tom. Partners can go with too."

A vacation with Cory and Tom is about the last thing Shawn can imagine wanting to do. "Kyle coming?" he asks.

"No, he can't make it."

Of course he can't. Shawn asks,"When is it?"

"Weekend after next."

"I have Sadie that weekend. You know that."

Cory looks distressed. "I didn't even think about that. Well, we can bring her with."

Shawn scowls. "Cory, you know how much trouble Anna gives me about making the half hour trip here every other weekend. There's no way she'd let me take Sadie to the other side of the country. It'd be a six-month negotiation process."

"Maybe you can switch weeks?"

Shawn just glares at him. Cory knows that's impossible and it's irritating that he's even suggesting it.

"Shit," Cory says finally, accepting the fact that Shawn's not going to be able to go. Shawn can't help but suspect that Cory knew this would be the case all along.

"So, just you and Tom, then?" Shawn asks, unable to meet Cory's eyes.

"No, no," Cory says, "I'm not gonna go. I'll tell them to pick someone else."

"No, it's like an honor, right? Isn't this a big deal?"

Cory nods reluctantly.

"Then you should go," Shawn tells him. He musters up the last of his ability to pretend and gives him a smile. "Have fun."

He leaves Cory standing in the kitchen and goes to find Sadie and get her ready for the museum. Shawn can't get out of this apartment soon enough.

* * *

They make it through the weekend seeing remarkably little of each other. Shawn is busy with Sadie and Cory pretty much only leaves the office to sleep and shower and then head right back. And then Monday hits and the week starts all over again.

Shawn stays in bed long after he's awake, pretending to sleep. He listens to Cory getting ready and doesn't allow himself to open his eyes until after he's heard Cory lock the front door as he leaves. Then Shawn rolls over and breathes deep into his pillow. After he took Sadie home last night, his heart started pounding and it hasn't felt like it's stopped since then. He'd hoped to find Cory when he got back from the train, but Cory worked late again; Shawn had already drugged himself to sleep by the time Cory got home.

His agent called again last night but Shawn couldn't bring himself to answer and still hasn't worked up the nerve to listen to her voicemail. He knows what she's calling about. He knows that he doesn't have the response she is looking for. He knows that he is fucking up big time.

Shawn's hands had gone numb while riding the train back from Jersey City and he'd started feeling the most terrible sense of foreboding that the train was going to crash. He tried to call Cory but dropped his phone twice and finally gave up. It had taken all of his willpower to go back to the apartment instead of just taking off down the sidewalk to wherever his feet could get him. This is all getting out of control.

And, more than anything, he just wants his heart to stop pounding.

He climbs out of bed and goes to Cory's dresser. At first he is careful not to disturb any of Cory's neatly folded clothes too much as he rifles through the drawers, but then he gets increasingly desperate and starts shoving things out of the way and throwing t-shirts and sweaters over his shoulder to clear his way to the back of each drawer faster. It must be in here.

Finally, at the back of the last drawer, he finds the little orange pill bottle he'd given to Cory all those months back because he didn't trust himself with it. Prize in hand, he leaves the piles of clothes behind him all over the floor and goes to get something to take it with. He ends up pouring one of the canned nutritional shakes into a glass with a heavy splash of vodka, telling himself it's like a nutritious White Russian. It's surprisingly good.

He takes one of the Xanax and sits on the floor of the kitchen nursing his faux White Russian until he feels his heart gradually return to a more normal-feeling pace. And when he's finished his drink, he goes to his laptop and starts typing an email before he loses his nerve. He doesn't even read it over, just types it out as fast as the words come to him and hits send. Then he fixes himself another drink and pops another pill. He is desperate to keep his heart from pounding again.

* * *

Cory's quite surprised when it's after lunch time and Tom still hasn't shown up at the office. Nobody's heard from him all morning and folks are starting to get concerned. Then he phones in. After speaking to his assistant and a couple of other people, the call gets put through to Cory.

"Matthews?"

"Hey. Everything okay?"

"Not really. Listen, Kyle and I split up last night."

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah, well, there's some stuff I need to straighten out over here and take care of. You mind taking charge of the project today?"

"No, no. Of course. I'm really sorry, Tom. That...that sucks."

"Yeah, well, things with Kyle had kind of run their course anyway. It was time. All right. Thanks a lot."

Cory hangs up the phone, feeling a little stunned. Cory has a habit of assuming that when people are together, they're in it to be together forever. It always throws him off when others are so casual about the life expectancy of their relationships. Cory hadn't liked Kyle much but, well, they were living together and it seemed like things were pretty serious. He wonders if it was something big that set it off or if it was more of a natural dissolution.

But then he pushes those thoughts away. He needs to concentrate on this project. Tom's showing a lot of trust in him, putting him in charge of it, and Cory doesn't want to let him down. When his cell phone rings, he assumes it's Tom calling again with some more specific directions about the project. It's Shawn's number, though, and when he answers there's a strange woman's voice on the other end.

"I think you need to come pick up your boyfriend," she says.

* * *

As Cory climbs up the steps from the subway, he alternates between feeling furious and terrified. It's easier to feel furious, though, so he concentrates on that. Leaving work in the middle of the day, on a day like today when he's just been handed a whole lot of time-sensitive responsibility, is not good. Having to do this so he can go rescue Shawn from whatever idiotic, self-destructive mess he's once again gotten himself into really makes Cory angry.

When he arrives at the pool hall and Shawn's friend Desiree leads him toward one of the back rooms, however, Cory's fury is completely subsumed by the terror.

"He was already half-cocked when he got here," Desiree tells him, "I only served him twice. I think he was mixing something with his drinks. I don't need that kinda shit going on here. I already had to call an ambulance for him once before, you know? I love the guy, but I don't need to be doing that again."

Cory feels sick to his stomach but somehow finds the ability to thank her for calling him. Then she shows Cory into the back room and closes the door behind him, leaving him and Shawn alone.

Shawn is sitting on a little sofa, as compact as possible with his knees folded up to his chin. Desiree had said on the phone that he'd freaked her out because he was speaking incoherently and couldn't keep his hands from trembling. He seems to have calmed down some since she called, though Cory can tell this is very much an effort on his part.

"You okay, Shawnie?"

He shakes his head as if moving in slow motion. "I fucked up bad." His voice is so thick, Cory can hardly understand what he's saying.

Cory sits down beside him and puts an arm around him. His shoulders are like bent wire. "What happened?"

"Broke my book contract."

 _Things have been so much worse than I thought._ Cory had known Shawn wasn't having the best time of it lately, but he hadn't understood just how bad things had gotten. How could he be so oblivious? But he wasn't just being oblivious, Cory realizes. He was believing what he wanted to believe. He wanted to believe that the appearance of the nutrition shakes in the pantry were a sign of Shawn quietly getting a handle on his problems. He wanted to believe that the Shawn he'd watched in the kitchen the other day, playing the clapping game with Sadie, adding on little improvised moves to entertain them both (his little family) was not just a performance. He wanted to believe that because Shawn told him nothing about his days now it was because everything was fine, not because his days had become so difficult Shawn couldn't bring himself to talk about them. Cory has only ever had one important job in his life: to look after the people he cares about. And he is blowing it.

"Okay," Cory says, bringing his thoughts back to just reassuring Shawn in this moment that things are not nearly so awful as he thinks, "That's all right." He pushes Shawn's hair back out of his face and kisses his temple. Shawn doesn't seem aware that Cory is even touching him. "Let's go home, okay?" Cory says, "We can talk about everything there."

Shawn doesn't say anything to this, but he holds out his fist to Cory, indicating that he's carrying something in it. Cory puts out his hand and Shawn drops a few tiny pills onto his palm that he's been holding so long they've become tacky and partially dissolved with sweat.

"What's this?"

"Xanax."

"Is that the only thing you've been taking?"

"Yeah."

"Thank god," Cory says and tosses them in the garbage. "Let's go home, Shawnie."

Shawn is an unsteady mess and it takes forever to walk him back to the apartment. He keeps starting to nod off, but Cory continually shakes him awake. Eventually, they make it home and Cory deposits him on the sofa and forces him to drink coffee in an attempt to sober him up and keep him from falling asleep. Cory's afraid of what might happen if Shawn slips into sleep. He has no idea how many benzos he's taken with his liquor in the past few hours. And he hopes he can trust Shawn that this is indeed all he's been taking.

By the time he's on his second mug of coffee, Shawn is a bit more lucid. "Did you leave work early?" he asks, seeming to have just now noticed that it's still light out.

"Don't worry about it," Cory tells him. He tries to take his own advice. Part of him is very concerned about dropping the ball on the project when Tom's counting on him. This is far outweighed by his concern about Shawn, though.

"Can I ask why you were out getting drunk at the pool hall in the middle of the day?" Cory decides not to even bring up the Xanax yet. "I know you're upset about the book contract, but that doesn't seem like the smartest plan."

"I just didn't want to be alone anymore."

Hearing him say that, Cory realizes just how isolated Shawn's become with Cory working all the time. It breaks his heart. "Why didn't you call me?"

Shawn closes his eyes and burrows back into the sofa. "I don't want to be bothering you all the time."

"Bothering me? You're the most important person in my life."

"Am I?"

Cory will never understand how Shawn's mind always makes the leap to the worst possible conclusion. "Of course you are." Then he notices that Shawn is getting a little too comfy and close to drifting off. He leans over and shakes him hard. "Hey!"

Shawn startles back awake and sloshes coffee onto his shirt. Cory takes the mug from him and sets it on the table. Then he turns back to Shawn and looks him directly in the eyes. "Everything's going to be all right. Okay? I'm going to make sure of that."

Shawn gives him the world's saddest little shrug. "Sure," he says.

And Cory smiles, even though it's obvious Shawn doesn't believe him. He smiles because Shawn once told him that if you smile and act like you're confident, people will start to believe that you are and start to trust that you know what you're doing. And eventually you'll feel like you really are that confident. It never worked as well for him as it did for Shawn-it never got him the dates or the jobs or the freebies that Shawn always seemed to charm his way into-but Cory will be damned if he doesn't make it work this time.

* * *

Shawn wakes up and blinks into the bright sunlight, trying to figure out what time it is. It's definitely not early. It feels closer to midday. He rolls over to look at the clock and groans in pain. It feels like an elephant has been laying on him all night.

He doesn't remember much about last night, but he remembers it was rough. Cory had been afraid to let him fall asleep until after two in the morning and the hours until that point had been agony. Shawn had wanted nothing more than to sleep, but Cory had worked overtime keeping him awake. He'd at first tried to ask him questions, but Shawn had been in too much of a fog to really participate in conversation so Cory ended up just chatting at him incessantly. Then they'd watched hours of crappy television with Cory poking and shaking Shawn periodically every time he started to drift off to blissful sleep. At some point, Cory had forced Shawn to eat dinner with him and Shawn had thrown it all back up an hour later. And then he'd had a full-on fucking panic attack, which didn't seem fair when he was already doped out of his gourd on anti-anxiety meds. In short, it was not a fun night.

He whimpers pitifully at the memory and buries his face in the pillow. And then Cory's there.

"I  _thought_  I heard you whining," he says cheerfully, sitting down beside him.

"I feel like shit," Shawn croaks. Then he turns his head to look at him. "Why aren't you at work?"

"I called in sick."

"But you've got the big project still, right?"

"Fuck 'em. They can live without me for a day."

Shawn is troubled by this. That job means everything to Cory. "What if they fire you?"

Cory shrugs. "Then they fire me. It's not the end of the world."

"Then we'd both be out of work."

"You're hardly out of work, Shawn."

Shawn sighs. "I'm gonna have to return my advance."

"So what? You've got plenty of money. I've seen your accounts. You could never write another word again and you'd be just fine. Sadie too."

This doesn't make Shawn feel better. He grew up understanding that financial stability can't ever be counted on. He's spent his whole working life knowing that you don't just walk away from money; that's the only way to keep from being like his parents. The weird thing is, the more money he's managed to sock away in his various accounts and investments, the more anxious he's become about it. It was almost easier when he had nothing. At least then he had nothing to lose.

"So, when did this happen, anyway? Was yesterday when you finalized the paperwork?"

"No, it wasn't like that. I just emailed my agent yesterday. I told her there wasn't going to be any book."

Cory gives him a funny look. "Maybe it's all those years I spent married to a lawyer," he says, "but I'm pretty sure you can't break a contract that way, Shawn. I think the process is a little more involved than that."

God. Even after everything yesterday, it's still not over _._ He's never going to escape this book. "Well, I fucked it up anyway," Shawn says, "the book's not happening. They know that now."

"Shawnie?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't wanna hear 'fucked up' anymore today. I don't wanna hear how you fucked something up or how you  _are_  fucked-up or how you're stupid or an idiot or anything like that, okay? Today's a clean slate."

"Sorry."

"I don't want to hear that either."

Shawn opens his mouth to reply "Sorry" again but catches himself. "Okay," he says instead. It feels weird.

"Great," Cory says. "Now get dressed. We've got places to be today."

"We do?"

"Bet your bottom dollar." Cory has such a goofy grin sometimes, especially when he slips into old man-isms like this.

Shawn can't help smiling back. "How are you ninety?"

"Shut up and get dressed. And no funny business. I've got my eye on you, Hunter."

When they head out, Cory first takes him for a doughnut and coffee which Shawn very much appreciates. It's nice being out in the middle of the day with Cory, just doing something unremarkable like laughing over coffee and doughnuts. The pain of the previous day fades away somewhat and Shawn feels normal again for the first time in ages. Then Cory takes him to a church where there's a lunchtime NA meeting. Usually, this would make Shawn raise his hackles, but today he doesn't even protest. He can't argue with Cory's belief that he needs this. Cory's right. Shawn needs to do  _something_  to get back on track. This is as good a start as any.

"I'll meet you back here in an hour, okay?" Cory tells him at the bottom of the church steps.

Shawn nods, slightly embarrassed, if compliant. He's surprised when Cory puts a hand to Shawn's face and kisses him in a way that is far more tender and intimate than he would ever normally do in public. "I love you," Cory says.

For the first time in a long time, Shawn believes him. Wholly with no doubts believes him.

Shawn doesn't talk at the meeting. It's okay just to listen and he always prefers that. It still helps him to feel like his ship's been a little more righted. And it seems like maybe there's a bit of light finally breaking through the clouds. Shawn stares down into his styrofoam coffee cup while people take turns talking and, for a little while, he forgets to be ashamed. For a few minutes he forgets to hate himself.

Afterwards, Cory takes him uptown to the Chinese restaurant Shawn likes and orders up a stupid amount of food. Then he passes a shopping bag from a bookstore across the table. Inside it Shawn finds a CD entitled "Meditation for the Creative Mind."

Shawn can't help but give him a skeptical look.

"Topanga used to swear by it," Cory assures him.

Cory looks so hopeful that Shawn doesn't want to shoot him down with cynicism. Cory's really trying to help today. Shawn appreciates that.

"Sure," Shawn says with a shrug, "I'll try anything." But he can't resist teasing him a bit. "A CD, though? Is it still 1997?"

"Sorry they didn't have it on vinyl. I know that doesn't mesh with your hipster aesthetic."

"Hipster," Shawn snorts. He can't even count the number of times Cory's called him that in the past few months. It never ceases to be absurd. "MP3 would've been fine."

Then Cory pours more tea for both of them, puts an egg roll and a won ton on Shawn's plate (Cory has never been particularly subtle) and says, "So, tell me everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything that's been going on. I want to know. No more not 'bothering' me with stuff, okay?"

Shawn toys with his egg roll and measures carefully what to say. He doesn't want to tell him about Kyle's visit or the watch or Shawn's concerns about Cory spending so much time at work and with Tom. It all seems petty now and he's afraid he's going to sound paranoid and crazy if he brings it up. He'll just have to trust Cory. Shawn doesn't want Cory thinking he's even more unhinged than he already does. Shawn feels like he's on thin ice already and accusations aren't going to help matters.

He also tells himself not to talk about Sadie. Cory doesn't want to hear about her. Even though Shawn's increasingly terrified that the poor girl's going to turn out like him and concerned that he's not smart enough or good enough to be her dad, that he's just as dangerous to her as Anna fears, he doesn't mention any of this to Cory. Cory just gets so weird every time Shawn talks about Sadie.

Instead, Shawn starts telling Cory about the book and how horrifying it has been to spend day after day completely unable to write. He tells him that he feels like a fraud and a failure. "What if that's it?" Shawn asks, staring down into his tea, "What if I never write anything again?"

"Shawnie, that's ridiculous. Of course you will."

"I don't know. I just...it was so easy before. All those other books? God, I wrote them like it was nothing. They just flowed out of me, you know? I can't figure out what's different this time. Why is it so hard now? What's changed?"

Cory looks at him like he's almost trying not to laugh. "Everything's changed. You don't think your whole life changing might have something to do with it?"

Shawn frowns. "My life hasn't changed that much."

"Oh, really? A year ago you were a rich, single guy author who lived like a monk and had absolutely nothing to do but write all the time. You had zero family obligations, zero relationships, and zero distractions. It sounds lonely as hell to me, but I'm sure it was easy to be productive. Now you're suddenly learning how to be a dad to a six-year-old girl and dealing with her mother who hates you and you're living with the love of your life-who's really a terrific guy, I gotta say but kind of a dumb-ass a lot of the time too-and suddenly people are expecting things from you, like talking to them and taking care of yourself and rearranging your life to suit theirs. And Sadie and Anna and I are sure doing an excellent job of forcing you to confront everything about yourself you probably thought you'd never have to deal with again when you were busy eliminating every human being from your life who mattered."

Shawn just stares at him, unable to speak. Shawn hasn't thought about any of it like that. It's so obvious now, but...somehow in a two minute monologue over an egg roll Cory pulled Shawn away from the trees and showed him the whole damn forest. It makes so much sense...how the hell did Shawn not realize any of this? And how is it that Cory can just look at Shawn's mess of a life and lay it out so neatly? He really does know him better than anybody.

Cory puts another won ton on Shawn's plate next to the first one and continues,"You're not some writing machine who's not affected by these things. I think it's just going to take some time to readjust your headspace to your new life and figure out how to work with it. And I'm just gonna keep putting more of these things on your plate until you eat something."

Shawn continues to stare at Cory. Then he takes one of the won tons and shoves it in his mouth. "How's that?" he asks with his mouth full.

"Better. My mother read me the riot act when I called her, by the way. She says I'm not taking good enough care of you."

Shawn scowls. "You shouldn't have to take care of me. I'm a grown man."

"We take care of each other. That's what love is."

Shawn feels all kinds of overcome at this statement. He takes a big bite of egg roll to distract himself from having to respond to it. In what crazy world does Shawn deserve to have somebody as kind as Cory love him?

"So, we need to talk about what happened yesterday," Cory says.

The shame that rises up in Shawn's gut is nauseating, but he sits back in the booth and takes a deep breath. He waits for a lecture, for Cory to tell him how disappointed he is, for Cory to tell him that this is his last chance and if Shawn fucks up again then Cory will be out of here. But Cory doesn't say any of this.

"We're not going to keep liquor in the house anymore, all right?" Cory says.

Shawn blinks in surprise. "Sure," he agrees.  _That's it?_

"And I know...I know the Xanax was prescribed, but I just don't..."

Shawn shakes his head. "I don't want it in the house anymore either. I was never comfortable knowing that was there."

"Why did you take it, then? What pushed you over?" Cory has such a strange look on his face as he asks this. It takes Shawn a moment to realize that it's fear.

Shawn pushes the remainder of his egg roll around the plate and tries to come up with an answer. It's so hard to untangle it all and to try and make sense of his thought process when he's in a state like that, to pick apart all of his emotions and reasoning. It doesn't make much rational sense when he's experiencing it, let alone when he's looking back on the experience. Shawn knows that a lot of it was the book, a lot of it was Sadie, and a lot of it was his suspicions about Cory. He doesn't say any of that out loud, though. Instead, he's surprised to hear himself say, "I just couldn't take my heart pounding like that anymore."

Cory cocks his head in confusion. "It's just anxiety. You know that."

"I know. I  _know_. But..Cory, my dad died of a heart attack before he was even fifty. It scares the hell out of me." Saying this out loud is the first time Shawn's really acknowledged this to himself.

And Cory looks at him so sadly. "Your dad was a lot older than you are. And heavier. And he smoked and drank his whole life."

"I haven't exactly been a health nut."

"Are you really afraid that you're going to have a heart attack?" It's clear from Cory's tone that he's not concerned that Shawn might actually have a heart attack, but that he is concerned that Shawn believes he might.

"I don't know, I don't know...I guess not. Not yet, anyway, maybe. Probably someday...probably sooner than I think. The idea really scares me, though. I don't like to think about that. I don't-I don't like to think about leaving you and Sadie. God, I don't want to think about that at all...I'd be letting you down and leaving you alone...I feel like I'm already letting you guys down..." Shawn's babbling now because his heart has started racing again and he's really trying to ignore it. Thinking about all of this, talking about it, has brought the panic back. "I'm letting everybody down. Oh, god..."

Cory gets up and slides into Shawn's side of the booth, sitting beside him. He puts his arm over Shawn's shoulder and Shawn leans into him and closes his eyes.

"You've never once let me down," Cory tells him.

For the moment, safe in Cory's arms, Shawn allows himself to believe that.


	8. King of the Kids

Shawn pulls himself out of the water and sits on the edge of the pool, his feet dangling in. Cory ducks under the rope from the next lane over and emerges in Shawn's lane. He lets his arms go loose and enjoys the sensation of them floating while he watches Shawn catch his breath. A week ago, Shawn had been barely able to do a handful of laps and it had taken him several minutes to catch his breath afterwards. Since then, though, he's built his stamina up a bit; he's now swimming longer and catching his breath quicker. The relief Cory feels at seeing Shawn actually getting better before his eyes is wonderful, though Cory's still a little surprised as to how they arrived here.

Shawn had told him that the only thing that felt good when the panic set in that wasn't a benzo or a stiff drink was running. He'd meant, of course, the instinct to flee as far away from everything as possible, not actual running (he'd spent the entirety of middle school and high school with a D in gym class largely because he refused to run on principle), but Cory had joked that he should try running on a treadmill so he'd get the same sensation but not actually go anywhere. Somehow that joke turned into the idea that Shawn should get a trial pass to Cory's gym and try some healthier ways of dealing with his anxiety. Then he'd surprised Cory when he tossed his trunks and a pair of goggles in his gym bag and announced that swimming would be his activity of choice. And so, for the past week Shawn has been meeting up with him on Cory's lunch hour and joining him at the gym.

Shawn kicks up a little bit of water at him and Cory ducks back, laughing. "I should tell my dad you've taken up swimming," Cory says, "He'd be happy."

"Why?"

"Well, he's the one who taught you, right?"

Shawn shakes his head and pulls off his goggles, leaving a red raccoon outline around his eyes, "Nah, he taught me better form-real strokes and all that, but I already knew the basics. My dad taught me. Well, 'taught' is probably not the right word."

"Was it in the bathtub?"

"No," Shawn says, his eyes going a little distant as he thinks back, "There was a lake by our place in Oklahoma. Maybe it was just a pond, I don't remember-I was little. But, anyway, he took me out in a row boat and tossed me in. Literally sink or swim. It kinda perfectly represents our relationship."

"Was he drunk?"

"Probably. Anyway, I learned to swim."

"You always were scrappy."

Shawn laughs. "Let me guess-you learned to swim with water wings?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I took Mommy-and-Me classes for three years straight. I will never forget how many humps Alice the Camel has."

Shawn grins, the first genuine big smile Cory's seen him give in ages. "That's perfect. That really is."

Shawn stands up and waits as Cory climbs out of the pool, then they head into the locker room. They shower quickly and Cory keeps one eye on what he's doing and one eye on Shawn. Or, more accurately, one eye on whoever else has got an eye on Shawn.

As pale and underfed as he looks, Shawn still seems to attract the surreptitious glances in the locker room that Cory knows all too well and in the lobby and common areas of the gym, he is constantly being hit on. Cory's pretty sure that Shawn could weigh fifty pounds or three hundred pounds, shave his head bald or don a rainbow-afro wig and he would still get flirted with. His charisma is just that powerful. Shawn doesn't even have to say a word and people are still drawn to him, even here at the gym where he is far from the best-looking guy. Cory has never understood it, though he's long been taken in by it, the same as everyone else. It's like some CIA-created super charm pheromone. Shawn could take down enemy nations if he wanted to, all with just a smile.

Seeing that happen with Tom, though, is the worst. They run into Tom in the locker room pretty much every afternoon and he always just looks at Shawn in this way that makes Cory grit his teeth and think about those videos and photos of them together. This time, as Tom starts heading toward them to say hello, Cory ducks in first and surprises Shawn with a kiss. Shawn gives Cory a confused little smile, and resumes getting dressed.

Tom, seeming to get the hint, doesn't even look at Shawn. Instead while he dresses he talks with Cory about the projects they need to wrap up before leaving for Seattle tomorrow. Cory is attentive-he's been on thin ice since he skipped work last week and he's eager to repair Tom's faith in him as best he can before they're alone together for three days representing their company.

Then Shawn slams his locker shut and zips up his bag with a sense of finality. "I'll see you tonight, Cor," he says.

Cory's surprised because usually he and Shawn eat lunch together before Cory heads back to work-it's become Cory's favorite afternoon ritual. But Shawn is giving them both a placid, businesslike smile.

"You're not gonna have lunch?" Cory asks, knowing he's probably annoying Shawn just by asking but feeling unable to  _not_ bring it up.

"Yeah, yeah," Shawn says, "I'll grab something on my way. I got an appointment I gotta get to, that's all."

"Okay," Cory gives in.

"Nice to see you, Shawn," Tom adds.

Shawn just smiles at this and gives them an over-the-shoulder wave as he heads out.

And there's Tom's look, watching Shawn as he goes. Cory sets his jaw and pulls his shoelaces so tight he almost breaks them. Tom notices the aggression and misinterprets it.

"Everything all right with you two?"

"Never better," Cory mutters. Then he tamps down his annoyance, remembering that he is still not Tom's favorite employee at the moment. "So, who do we know who's going to be in Seattle?" he asks in a much lighter tone.

Tom continues to gaze at him a moment before he answers, a small smile turning up the corners of his lips in a way that makes Cory strangely uncomfortable. "Oh, everybody," Tom says, "Beale and Young, Circle, those idiots on 47th...we'll have our competition on all sides of us."

Cory shrugs. "Bring on the competition. I think we got plenty to show 'em."

Tom laughs. "That's the spirit." He ruffles Cory's curls but doesn't seem to notice that Cory pulls ever so slightly away. Then as they're leaving Tom says, "You were looking pretty good in those swim trunks, by the way. I think your efforts are starting to pay off."

Cory wishes that he didn't feel butterflies in his stomach at hearing Tom say this.

* * *

Shawn gets off the train back into Manhattan and slides the portfolio of materials from the latest school into his bag. He's been out to visit five schools over the last week and is feeling a little overwhelmed with the information. He wishes he had someone he could talk to about Sadie-related business; he is in so over his head. Just someone to help him make sense of all this material would be a start. His head is swimming with statistics, average test scores, extra curriculars, class sizes, and teaching philosophies.

He checks the time on his phone and picks up his pace. He'd finally worked up the nerve to return one of Helen's many calls the last couple of days and, as Cory had suspected, Shawn's book contract was far from canceled. In addition, Helen pointed out to him that the publishers needed Shawn a lot more than he needed them and would happily extend things. Shawn sheepishly accepted this since he didn't have much choice. At least now he had more time. Maybe he'd have some miraculous turn-around in his writer's block, though it didn't seem particularly likely. Anyway, he had decided to take a couple days off from thinking about it. But then Helen had called again to say she had something she needed to give him and they'd arranged to meet at the apartment.

Helen's already waiting in the lobby when Shawn gets there.

"I can't stay," she says before he's even managed to greet her, "But I wanted to give you this. I think it might help."

Her hands are empty so Shawn is confused, then he notices the dolly beside her. It's loaded down with three very full cardboard boxes, the type reams of paper come in. "What's all that?" he asks her.

"I had your publicist send me over some of your fan letters. I know you never look at them, but I thought maybe it was time you did. There's a lot more if you want them."

Shawn doesn't know what to say. For some reason, looking at that dolly stacked with fan letters makes him uneasy. The whole idea of fan letters makes him uneasy; it's why he's avoided having them sent over all this time. "Thanks," he says finally.

Helen smiles. "You look better than you did the last time I saw you."

He smiles back at her, slightly embarrassed. She is not the first person to say this to him lately. He must've really looked like shit before.

"Well," she says, giving him a pat on the arm, "Send me something when you've got it."

After she has left, Shawn takes the dolly and hauls it into the elevator, brings it up to the apartment with him. He parks it in the office, then has a seat on the little sofa and stares at the boxes. After an eternity has passed, curiosity gets the best of him and he slips one of the letters out of the top box. He unfolds it to reveal a sheet of notebook paper and wobbly kid writing. He bites his knuckle and starts to read.

By the time Cory gets home that night, Shawn has filled up the seat next to him on the sofa with stacks of letters.

"What's all this?" Cory asks.

Shawn hands him one of the letters. Cory reads it, then smiles. "That must feel good."

"It doesn't feel bad," Shawn admits.

Cory shoves a pile of letters out of the way and sits down beside Shawn. Cory picks up a handful of the letters and starts looking through them, but Shawn finds himself thinking out loud.

"It's funny," Shawn says, "I started writing these stories because I missed you. I guess I wanted a way to still have you in my life, so I started writing about when we were kids and, well, it turned into something else, obviously. But, you know, that's all it was to begin with, a way to have you back when I thought you were gone forever..."

Cory puts his head on Shawn's shoulder and Shawn continues.

"Now that you're here, I'm not sure I need to write these stories anymore. I think maybe that's why it's gotten so hard."

"It makes sense," Cory says softly.

Shawn nestles his chin into Cory's curls for a moment. For so long this is all he wanted. And now he has it. "These kids all love you," Shawn tells him.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, so many of these letters, Cor, they talk about how much they like your character. Everybody wants a friend like you."

"I think you make me a lot better than I am," Cory says, referring to the way Shawn writes Cory's character in the books.

Shawn chooses to misunderstand. "You make me better too."

Cory smiles at this and looks up at him. "You wanna fuck? We haven't fucked in ages."

Shawn tries not to laugh. He still thinks it's funny when Cory says 'fuck.' Cory never used to say 'fuck.' It's kind of adorable. "I think I'd like that."

"Or is your head too big now after reading all these letters to fit through the door?"

Shawn flips back his hair, miming vanity. "I  _am_  the king of the kids."

"Does that mean it has to be PG-rated fucking?"

"Hell, no. I couldn't even begin to know how to do that anyway."

Cory rolls his eyes and pulls Shawn to his feet. As he's leading him out to the bedroom, Shawn says, "I think you looked really hot in your swimming trunks today, by the way." Cory gets a strange look on his face when Shawn says this, but it disappears quickly.

Shawn's riding too high on the validation of all those letters to pay it too much mind. Instead he channels his giddiness into everything he does to Cory that night. He is extra attentive to every part of Cory's body, his cock and his balls and his adorable ass, of course, but also those little parts that don't always get shown enough appreciation. Shawn sucks Cory's toes, nibbles his ears, licks the shallows of his collarbone. Shawn can never get enough of making Cory giggle, then making him squirm with pleasure. Cory Matthews is the happiest, cutest guy on the planet, forever a great big kid; Shawn keeps catching himself tracing the perfectly round curves of Cory's eyebrows, marveling at his beautiful, sweet face. When they actually get around to the fucking, Shawn goes longer than he can ever remember having gone, feeling the full weight of how incredible this time in his life is. They are young and healthy and, most of all, they are together.

"I'm so glad to have you back," Cory gasps.

Shawn presses his face in-between Cory's strong, smooth shoulder blades and exhales, exhausted pleasure pumping through his veins. Even though he hasn't been anywhere, really, it does indeed feel good to be back.

* * *

Cory wakes up in the middle of the night, just knowing something isn't right. It takes him a second to realize that Shawn is not beside him. He'd definitely been there when Cory fell asleep. Trying not to let his imagination run wild but still fearing the worst possibilities, Cory stumbles out of the bedroom (they'd left their clothes strewn across the floor earlier) and goes looking for him.

To Cory's immense relief, he locates Shawn quickly. He's in the office again, typing away on his laptop with a look of manic determination on his face.

"Oh, hey," he says, noticing Cory in the doorway, "Hang on."

Cory rubs his face sleepily and takes a seat on the coffee table across from Shawn. He reads through a few of the fan letters that are piled everywhere while he waits for him to finish. The letters are incredibly cute. Shawn is a goddamned god in the eyes of these kids, just like he was to Cory when they were kids.

Eventually Shawn seems to reach a stopping point and he sets his laptop aside. Then he surprises Cory, leaning forward and giving him an enthusiastic kiss. He is beaming.

"What are you doing up?" Cory asks when Shawn releases him.

"I was hungry. Then I had an idea and I wanted to write it down before I forgot."

"You were hungry?"

"I know, right?" Shawn picks up a plastic bowl of pretzels that Cory hasn't noticed until now and offers them to him. Cory holds up his hand and Shawn shrugs and pops a handful of pretzels in his mouth. "I'm fucking starving," he says. Shawn has always seemed to wait to speak until he has a mouth full of food. It's one of his less endearing traits. Still, Cory is heartened to see his appetite returned.

"Let me make you something better than that," Cory says, inclining his head judgmentally at the pretzels.

Shawn starts to protest-it's too late, Cory has work in the morning-but Cory shoves the laptop back in his hands and that shuts him up. Cory can tell Shawn just wants to continue writing.

In the kitchen, Cory tries to find a sweet spot between something vaguely nutritious and something he can conceivably prepare while still half-asleep. He ends up with a bag of chicken ravioli, smiling to himself as he remembers the way Shawn made a big fuss the first time Cory purchased fresh pasta for them instead of dry. The mental line Shawn draws between "things I am allowed to do/own" and "things only rich people do/own" is sometimes completely bizarre to Cory. And Shawn has a very hard time whenever he has to cross it.

The act of making the pasta wakes Cory up a little more. He still has that pleasantly satisfied feeling in his belly from their escapades the night before and his heart is doubly-swollen by the things Shawn had told him yesterday about why he started writing the Cheaty books. To think that Shawn loved him that much all those years apart, and that something as terrific as those books that all these people love came out of it...Cory feels humbled. Then the thought occurs to him:  _I wish I could tell Topanga_.

He misses her. He doesn't miss all the things that were wrong with their relationship or the last couple lousy years of their marriage when everything was so empty, but he misses her friendship. It's wonderful that they've been able to have such an amicable (if never-ending) divorce process, but Cory still finds himself in moments like this wishing they could talk like they used to. He could have used her advice when things got so bad with Shawn two weeks ago, and would like to hear her thoughts on what she thinks about Tom or like right now tell her how he's just feeling the most amazing mix of relief and happiness and just...love. He wants to share that with her, as messed up as that desire might seem considering their own relationship.

As Cory's thinking about this and draining the pasta, Shawn saunters into the kitchen and helps himself to a handful of Teddy Grahams they keep in a canister for Sadie.

"I'm making you a meal here," Cory points out, "Don't fill up on crap."  _God, I sound just like my dad._

"I'll eat it, don't worry," Shawn says. He shoves another handful of cookies in his mouth and leans back against the breakfast bar. "I don't remember the last time I was this hungry."

"Well, that's good. I'm glad."

"I don't like it. I feel like I'm twelve again."

Cory doesn't enjoy thinking about the thoughts that statement brings up. He doesn't like contemplating how crummy Shawn's childhood was or how oblivious Cory was to this fact the whole time they were living it. "Here," he says, spooning up a plate of ravioli, "Have some fancy pasta."

Shawn takes a seat at the bar and looks pointedly at Cory until he fixes himself a plate as well. Cory hadn't been planning on having a second dinner at three in the morning, but if it makes Shawn happy he will. He sits down at the bar and keeps Shawn company while he wolfs down his food. Finally, when his plate is empty and he's swiped an extra ravioli off Cory's plate for good measure, Shawn puts his head down on his arm and finally takes a breath. Then he smiles up at Cory. "I figured it out."

"Figured out what?"

"Where the story needs to go."

"That's great."

Shawn closes his eyes, contented. Cory takes a few more bites, then asks, "So, what happens?"

"He meets his kid sister."

"I thought Cheaty was an orphan."

"So did I. So did he. But we were wrong. Between his best friend and his little girl, he's got a real family."

Cory smiles at this slip-up. "Little sister."

"Huh?"

"Little sister, not little girl."

"Right." Shawn sits up and groans. Now he's too full. Of course. "The thing is," he continues, looking slightly pained, "that makes Cheaty's story complete."

"What do you mean? Like, for good?"

"Yeah," Shawn nods, seeming to be somewhat surprised by this fact.

"So, is that it? No more books?"

"No more Cheaty books."

Cory sits back and looks at him. "But more books?"

"Well, Trixie's gonna take over."

"Who's Trixie?"

"Cheaty's sister."

"Oh." Cory thinks about this and smiles. It's perfect. Shawn's not writing the books for himself anymore; he's writing them for Sadie. "That's brilliant, Shawnie."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think that's a great idea."

Shawn nods, satisfied. "I think it'll work. I think it's gonna be...I'm excited to start plotting it out."

They sit there quietly for a few more minutes, Cory finishing his pasta and Shawn turning all the plot gears in his brain. When he finishes up, Cory cleans up the dishes then says, "If I'm not going back to bed tonight, I might as well go pack. Guess I'll sleep on the plane this afternoon."

Shawn seems confused for a moment until he realizes what Cory's talking about and remembers that he is leaving for Seattle today. The excitement drops off his face. "Let me pack for you," he says.

"If I let you pack, I'll have nothing but too-tight sweaters and t-shirts."

"And if you pack, it'll be all baggy Dockers and polo shirts. You're a twenty-something gay man who lives in Manhattan. You aren't allowed to dress that bad."

Cory narrows his eyes at him, annoyed that Shawn can both peg him and shame him so well. Nobody should have that kind of power. "All right," Cory says, "We'll pack together."

As the sun starts coming up, they hang out in the bedroom, Cory holding up potential items of clothing and Shawn vetoing most of them. Shawn suggests other options, most of which Cory, in turn, vetoes. Several times Shawn tries to talk Cory into taking some of Shawn's clothes instead. Each time, Cory gently brushes off the idea and the next time Shawn pushes the idea harder until finally he gets genuinely annoyed.

"What's the problem, Cory? You used to borrow my clothes all the time in college."

"We're not  _in_  college anymore. I don't look like I did in college. I can't get away with dressing like you do."

"Why not?" Shawn looks at him like he's crazy. "You've got a great body."

Now it's Cory's turn to look at him like he's crazy. Why doesn't Shawn get it? "I don't look anything like all those guys at the gym," Cory says.

"What guys?"

"All those guys who are always checking you out. At the gym and the pool hall and the grocery store-the  _grocery_  store. You know. Guys who look like Tom."

Shawn seems to tense up at the mention of Tom's name. Cory assumes this is because he's caught Shawn on the fact that he's still attracted to Tom. And probably looks at all those guys at the gym and the pool hall and the grocery store-all those Tom-like guys-and fantasizes about sleeping with them instead of doughy, average Cory. Cory believes he's cornered Shawn into admitting to himself that looks do matter, that Shawn had guys who looked like that before and probably would like to be with guys who looked like that again.

"Why're you talking about Tom?"

"Because he's what everybody wants to be with." Cory says, exasperated. "Everybody wants to be with somebody wildly attractive. They're lying if they say otherwise."

Shawn has such an odd expression on his face, like he's upset or confused, like what Cory's saying is something he's never thought of before. Cory doesn't understand why Shawn doesn't seem to get it; these are basic rules of attraction.

" _I_  don't look like Tom," Shawn says quietly.

"Yeah, but..." Cory pauses, trying to figure out how to explain to him that, for whatever reason, Shawn's been blessed with this innate charm that supersedes the rules. He doesn't  _have_  to have a body like Tom's to be considered wildly attractive. Seemingly everybody in Manhattan wants to be with Shawn and that's what freaks Cory out so much. He can't compete with all these incredible-looking guys who'd like nothing more than to swoop in and steal Shawn away from him. And Cory doesn't need to be drawing attention to this fact by parading around in too-tight clothes, looking like some middle-aged accountant trying desperately to be hip. Before he can put this into words, though, Shawn cuts him off.

"I just wanted you to look nice," Shawn says, standing up from the bed, "Wear whatever you want." He mutters something under his breath as he leaves the room. It sounds like 'fuck whoever you want,' but Cory's not sure. It doesn't make any sense to him that Shawn would say that so he lets it go. He mentally shakes off this bizarrely tense conversation and gets back to the work of packing.

* * *

Shawn shakes a sprinkle of stinky fish food flakes into the tank and then plops down on the end of Sadie's bed and watches the inhabitants of the aquarium go to town on their breakfast. He knows he should probably take a nap since he's got Sadie tonight and will need to be fairly awake for that, but Cory's still packing in the bedroom and Shawn doesn't want to be anywhere near him right now.

Fucking Cory. He's really making it hard to believe that there isn't  _something_  going on between him and Tom. If there _is_  something going on, he's not exactly being slick about it and if there isn't...well, then Cory's just completely obsessed with Tom, and Shawn thinks that might be almost worse.

When did Cory Matthews, of all people, get so hung up on looks? Is it from all the years of not accepting his sexual attraction to men that Cory's now fallen so whole-heartedly for the biggest gay cliche of "ideal attractive male" in the book? It would be funny if it didn't also make Shawn feel like shit. Shawn doesn't look anything like this ideal that Cory's apparently so hung up on. He's never looked like that and never will. And Shawn's okay with this; being short and scrawny has never interfered with being able to sleep with whomever he wanted to. But if Cory's so hung up on being with somebody who looks like a fucking underwear model, what's Shawn supposed to do about it? Is he supposed to just tell Cory 'Sure, go off and live out your fantasies with Tom' and just hope that Cory comes back when he's got it out of his system?

Shawn crawls up the bed and gets under the covers. He pulls one pillow up over his head and buries his face into the other. The way Cory's talking...it almost sounds like he's rationalizing his desire for Tom, whether it's in advance of something happening or out of guilt that it already did.

A little whimper escapes Shawn's throat involuntarily at this thought.

No. Fuck that. Cory may be naive and he may be enamored with the possibilities of sexual freedom after so many years of repression and denial, but he's still Cory. Cory would never hurt Shawn.

_He hurt me before._

Shawn smothers that thought by pulling the pillow tighter over his head. As he lies there, listening to the sound of his own breathing, reminding himself that Cory hurting him was a long time ago and isn't now, he realizes how tired he is. He loosens his grip on the pillow and lets his body relax and, as he drifts into sleep, his last thought is a contented one:  _Cory wouldn't hurt me again._

"Hey, I'm heading out now."

Shawn opens his eyes slowly and focuses in on Cory who's standing beside the bed with his suitcase. It feels to Shawn like he's been asleep for hours, but it must only have been a half hour or so. Still, he is groggy and confused. He was upset about something before...he doesn't remember what it was now.

Cory sits down on the bed as Shawn pulls himself up to a sitting position. "You gonna be all right for a few days?" Cory asks him.

"Sure," Shawn replies automatically. Cory's leaving, though. He doesn't like that idea. His heartbeat starts picking up its pace and this wakes Shawn up more and distresses him. It suddenly seems like a very bad idea for Cory to go. To steady his nerves and undercut his fears, Shawn tries to turn it into sort of a joke. "Promise me your plane's not gonna crash," he says.

Cory pats Shawn's knee. "I promise, Shawnie. No fiery plane crashes for me."

"How 'bout non-fiery?"

"No plane crashes. Period. I won't stand for that."

"Okay." Shawn tries to gauge if his heart's going to start racing even faster, but it seems to be holding steady at slightly too fast. He can live with that. "And promise me you won't fall in love with any...whatever they have in Seattle. Grunge guys? Microsoft employees?"

"Baristas?"

"Them either."

"Don't worry about it. I mean, I probably won't even be leaving the conference hotel the whole time. The only other person I'm really gonna see much is Tom."

Ah, there it is. Before Shawn can say anything more, though, Cory is kissing him goodbye. Then he rises and reaches for his suitcase. Shawn starts to go with him, but Cory gently pushes him back toward the mattress. "Get some rest. I'll call you when I get in."

"I love you," Shawn calls out just before Cory leaves the room.

He turns back to look at him and smiles. "Love you too. I'll see you Sunday."

After Cory has gone, Shawn buries his face back into the pillow and tries to ignore his heart and the way his stomach has started churning. He closes his eyes and tries to remember the meditation techniques from that stupid CD, tries to just talk himself back into sleep.

Cory will be fine and Cory will come back and it doesn't matter who Cory spends all his time with the next few days; Cory's heart belongs to Shawn. Cory would never hurt him. Well, would never hurt him again.

* * *

Cory makes it to his gate and then settles in to wait for boarding. Tom had a meeting he couldn't miss this afternoon, so he'll be on a later flight and they'll meet up at the hotel. For the next few hours it's just Cory on his own with no obligations. It's been a while since he found himself in this situation and Cory's not entirely displeased. He flips through the  _Sports Illustrated_  he picked up at the bookstore, sips a sugary coffee drink, and feels over all quite content. Life is going well.

When his phone rings and it's Topanga, he doesn't even hesitate to pick up. As he does, though, he suddenly remembers that she'd texted him a few weeks back to see when he had time to talk and he'd never gotten back to her. Oh, well. Better late than never, he supposes. He answers and launches into his apologetic explanation right away.

"Hey, Topanga. I'm really sorry I never got back to you-I didn't mean to do that. Things have been completely crazy this past month."

"That's all right. I know you're busy. Cory, listen, I don't have long to talk. I just wanted to know...do you have any time next week? I'm going to be in New York for a couple days and I thought, well...I really need to see you about something."

Her voice is strange. Cory recognizes the very rare sound of Topanga nervous. "Everything okay?" he asks with concern.

"Yes. Yes, everything is fine. There's something I need to talk to you about, though, and I'd rather not do it on the phone. So, do you think you'll be able to meet up with me?"

"Sure. Of course. Send me the info and we'll work something out."

"Thanks, Cory."

"You sure you're all right?"

Cory waits a second for a response that doesn't come before he realizes that Topanga's already hung up. All right, then.

He tires to return his attention to  _Sports Illustrated,_  but he can't get his mind off the way Topanga sounded. Obviously, something is up if she wants to meet with him while she's in New York. But something tells him it's not related to the divorce. Anything with that and she surely would have just sent him fifty emails hashing everything out in precise detail. No, this is definitely something personal. He wonders if she's met someone. Then he tells himself this is absurd, of course she's met someone. She probably had lines of guys just waiting for the day when she came to her senses and kicked Cory to the curb. God, maybe she's getting re-married already...

Cory is considering how he feels about this possibility when his phone rings again. It's Eric. Cory rolls his eyes as he answers.

"Mom says you're going to Seattle," Eric says with no preamble.

"I am," Cory agrees, "I'm waiting for my flight right now."

"Why didn't you call me?"

Cory sighs. Eric and his family live in Seattle. Cory should have called him. He hasn't seen Eric in almost a year. Cory still hasn't met his new nephew who's almost three months old now. But, for some reason, Cory just hadn't gotten around to getting in touch with Eric. Well, not for  _some_  reason. Cory knows why. He and Eric have never been close, really, and Eric has always had a special knack for getting under Cory's skin. Every time they get together, Cory ends up really irritated and in a bad mood. Plus, he hasn't seen Eric since before the whole leaving Topanga for Shawn business happened. He has not been eager to hear Eric's no-doubt sensitive insight into these life events.

"Sorry," Cory says, "I'm only going to be in town until Sunday and I figured you wouldn't have time to meet, with the baby and work and all."

"Mmm. Where you staying?"

"Uh, the Sheraton?"

"Okie doke. I'll see you at the hotel bar at ten."

Cory frowns, but he can't think up a quick reason why they can't meet. He supposes this isn't too bad, actually. He's gotta see Eric sometime. Twenty minutes or so in a hotel bar isn't the worst option, all things considered. "All right," he agrees.

"Sweet. Barnabus Zephyr and I are looking forward to it."

Oh, good lord, he's bringing the baby. Cory starts to tell him that he doesn't think this is the best idea, but then he realizes that Eric's already hung up. What is with everybody hanging up on him today? Cory grumbles a little and returns his attention to  _Sports Illustrated_. No more weird phone calls. No more worrying about anything. For the next couple of hours, it's Cory Time, dammit.

* * *

Sadie's nose starts dripping on the train. Shawn is preoccupied trying to find something to give her in lieu of tissues (how bad would it be to give her his glove? his sleeve?) when a middle-aged woman offers up some Kleenex from her purse. Shawn feels immediately inadequate as a parent, despite being extremely grateful to this stranger, as he watches Sadie dab and blow. Now he understands why Amy Matthews always carried that big 'mom' purse with Band-Aids and cough drops and endless Kleenex. Maybe he needs to get a purse.

By the time they get back to the apartment, though, Sadie is very clearly coming down with a full-on cold: chills, runny nose, the works. Against her protests, he wrangles her into pajamas and bundles her up in blankets on the sofa. He leaves her watching Animal Planet and ducks into the kitchen with his phone.

He pauses, then, uncertain who he thinks he can call. God, he not only needs a mom purse, he needs some mom friends. Although he really, really doesn't want to, he calls Anna. They haven't spoken since parent-teacher day, so he keeps it short and just tells her Sadie's got a cold.

Anna sighs. "Yeah, that's been going around at school. I guess it was only a matter of time before she caught it."

Shawn waits for her to tell him what to do next, but she doesn't say anything. "Is that it?" Shawn asks.

Anna sighs again, this time impatiently. "What do you want me to do? You want to be Daddy so bad, Shawn. Now, what? You want me to come out there and take her home? I thought having her on your weekends was so important to you."

"No," he says, closing his eyes and trying very hard to hold his temper, "I'm not asking you to do that. I'm not asking you to do anything. I just thought you should know. That's it."

"Okay..."

"Okay, fine. Now you know. I'll have her back on Sunday." He hangs up the call and wishes for a second that he still had a landline phone instead of a cell phone so that he could slam the receiver down with that old, familiar satisfaction.

Then he stands there in the kitchen, feeling at a loss. He pokes his head into the living room and calls out to Sadie, "Doing okay?"

There's a labored pause before she replies. "Can I play Lego Star Wars?"

Shawn is relieved. She can't be that bad off. "I'll set you up in a few minutes. Watch your animals until then."

Back in the kitchen he runs through all the things he thinks she might need. They have soup; he can make that. They have juice and ginger ale. They have Kleenex. They have Dayquil and Nyquil and Aspirin and Tylenol. But he's not sure if she's supposed to have any of that. Aren't there kid-specific cold medicines? He vaguely remembers having to swallow nasty liquid stuff when he was little. And what if she gets worse? He has no idea what temperature is a safe temperature and what temperature is a scary-high temperature. He takes out his phone and looks it up. There's conflicting information. And the temperature debate leads him to a page on symptoms that look like a cold but are sometimes signs of something much worse. And that leads him to pages on childhood diseases and those lead him on to even scarier pages, all of which contain death as a possible outcome.  _Jesus Christ._  He closes out his web browser and does the only thing that he can think of at that moment to stop his heart from racing: he calls Amy Matthews.

He's thrown off when Alan answers the phone. "Oh," he says, "Hi, Mr. Matthews. It's, um, it's Shawn."  _Oh, god, please don't be thinking about me fucking your son..._

"Hi, Shawn. How's it going?"

"Uh, fine. It's fine. Um, how are you?"

"I'm all right. It's Friday night. You know."

"Yeah," Shawn agrees, although he really has no idea what Mr. Matthews is talking about. "Um, listen. Could I...could I talk to Mrs. Matthews for a minute?"

"Sure. Sure thing. Hang on."

Mr. Matthews sets the phone down and Shawn exhales deeply. How is it that talking to Cory's dad for thirty seconds turns Shawn right back into an awkward thirteen-year-old again? An awkward thirteen-year-old who desperately doesn't want his best friend's dad to know that he's totally in love with his best friend.

Then Mrs. Matthews picks up and Shawn feels a hundred times better just hearing her voice. It's like everything has been fixed already. He tells her about what's going on and asks her what he should do.

"Well, don't worry, first of all," she tells him, "Kids get colds all the time. Give her some children's tylenol. Just follow the directions on the package. Push fluids. Some soda is all right, but not too much because that's dehydrating. Stick to juice and water if you can. Make her some brothy soup and make sure she gets plenty of rest. That's the best thing."

"How do I know if I need to take her in?"

"If she gets a lot worse...you know, if she's vomiting or if her temperature spikes above 101 or so, then you might want to take her in. I'm sure she'll be fine, though. Just do what you would do if you had a cold."

If Shawn had a cold, he would pour himself a glass of whiskey and settle in with  _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_. Somehow he thinks that's not a great plan for Sadie. Mrs. Matthews's advice sounds better.

"Okay," he says, "Thanks so much."

"Of course. Feel free to call me if anything comes up. Don't worry about the time."

"Thank you."

"How are you doing, Shawn?" Amy asks, her voice softening.

Shawn starts to reply with a throw-away 'I'm fine,' but stops himself. She's really asking. So he says, "I'm better. Things are a lot better."

"Oh, I'm so glad to hear that."

He smiles, even though she can't see him. Then he hears the phone on the other end being shuffled and Alan gets back on the line.

"When are we gonna see you, Shawn?" he asks.

"Soon," Shawn promises.

"Thanksgiving?"

"Yes," Shawn declares, "Absolutely."

"All right, I'm holding you to that. If Cory shows up here without you again, I'm coming to New York to bring you home myself."

Shawn laughs. "I promise. I'll be there."

Then Amy wrestles the phone back. "Goodnight, Shawn."

"Goodnight."

After he hangs up, Shawn just stands there for a moment, feeling warm and fuzzy. How is it possible that the Matthews family is so nice? How have they always been so nice  _to him_? He shakes his head at insanity of this. Then he goes to fetch the First Aid kit to get the thermometer. As he's taking it down from the shelf in the linen closet, he starts to wonder how he can get children's Tylenol without leaving the apartment-perhaps he can bribe the doorman to pick some up? But when he opens the plastic box of supplies Cory had put together a few months back, there right next to the thermometer is an unopened box of children's Tylenol. Cory must have anticipated they might need it for Sadie at some point.

"Oh, Cory, I love you," Shawn says out loud. Not for the first time he thinks that Cory would be so much better at being a dad than Shawn is.

Then Sadie starts calling from the living room, "Daddy! I don't feel good."

Shawn grabs what he needs quickly and, with a deep breath of determination, heads in to do his best.


	9. It Ain't a Game If It Ain't Rigged

After spending the afternoon getting his credentials and attending panels, Cory heads up to his room to drop off his swag. He's acquired an absurd amount of free products-tote bags, travel mugs, key chains, jump drives-all plastered with logos; they just kept handing it to him. When he dumps it all out, half the bed is covered. He takes a quick picture of the spread and texts it to Shawn, captioned "Freebies!"

Shawn loves free stuff. Every coffee mug in their apartment has somebody's logo on it and Cory's pretty sure Shawn's never purchased a pen in his life; he's a compulsive pen snatcher. It gets to be a little much, though. Cory's okay with hitting the grocery store on Saturday afternoons for the free sample bonanza, but when Shawn's publishers started sending him all sorts of free books, so many that they were taking up the whole dining room, Cory put his foot down and insisted Shawn donate them. Shawn surprised him by not being the slightest bit put out by this, instead taking it upon himself to do some research and ship them all to a prison library upstate. When Cory had asked him why he'd chosen to donate the books there of all places, Shawn just shook his head and said, "If I hadn't met you when we were kids, I would've ended up in lock-up someplace for sure. I think I would've liked to have had some decent books to read, at least."

Cory had wanted to kiss him then but hadn't. Thinking about it now, in a hotel room half way across the country from him, he wants to kiss him again but can't. How is it possible to miss somebody so much when they've been apart less than eight hours?

He checks his phone, but Shawn hasn't replied to the text. Cory does his best to put that nagging little bit of concern that he feels into check. He's going to be gone less than three days; Shawn will be fine. Besides, it's a Sadie weekend so Shawn can't get into too much trouble.

Cory starts to take off the lanyard with his name badge, but then he decides to leave it on. The hotel bar will no doubt be filled with other folks from the conference. After he finishes with Eric, Cory might just stick around to do a little networking. Tom would want him to do that. Flipping the badge around so his name and affiliation face outward, Cory heads downstairs to meet up with Eric.

Eric's already there when Cory arrives and he spots him right away. He's wearing Barnabus Zephyr (oh, that name) in a carrier strapped to his chest. Despite this, he looks completely at ease, drinking a club soda and chatting up a woman at the bar. He says something to the woman, turns away from her and looks at Cory with one eyebrow raised. "Morgan said you were getting fat," Eric greets him, "You don't look that fat to me."

"Thanks a lot. You guys are sweet." For whatever reason, Eric and Morgan have always been much closer than Eric and Cory or Cory and Morgan, and they continue to talk all the time. It balances out, somewhat, because Cory's closer to Josh than either of them are. Still, it irritates Cory to no end when Eric and Morgan talk about him behind his back.

Eric continues to appraise him as Cory takes a seat beside him at the bar. "Working out?"

Cory gets the attention of the bar tender and gets an Amstel Light. "A little."

"Weeell, don't get too thin. I bet ole' Shawnie likes you with a gut."

Cory swallows his drink hard. "What are you talking about?"

Eric gives him an all-knowing look. "That guy is a walking daddy issue. Mark my words, somewhere in that messy little orphan brain of his, there's a part of him that likes it when you look a little like Chet Hunter."

"That's disgusting. You're insane."

"It's not disgusting. That's human sexuality, little brother. We're all fucked-up perverts. And we all secretly want to screw our mommies and our daddies. You went to college-didn't you learn anything?"

"Well, I don't secretly want to screw someone who's like Mom."

Eric gives him that same all-knowing look.

"What?" Cory says, "I don't."

"That's 'cause you want to screw someone who reminds you, ever so slightly, of Dad."

"That's ridiculous. Shawn absolutely in no way resembles Dad."

Eric cocks his head. "Ooh, I dunno, Cor-Cor..."

Cory takes another deep sip of his beer as Eric continues.

"Seems to me Pops used to say all the time how Shawny-boy reminded him of himself."

"Oh, god," Cory whispers, horrified, "He totally did..."

"Mmm-hmm," Eric nods.

"Hey, wait," Cory says, thinking about Eric's wife, "I always thought Sarah looked a little like Mom."

Eric shrugs. "I'm secure with that. Human nature, no big deal, Freud, Freud, Freud..."

Cory shakes his head, signaling an end to this truly disturbing conversation. Eric seems to have a knack for creating those and it's something Cory has not exactly missed. Cory leans over then and peers at baby Barnabus who's sound asleep against Eric. Cory feels a tightness in his chest and takes another sip of beer to press it down. "He looks like you," he says, although he has know idea if this is true. When they're that young, Cory's found, babies just tend to look like all other babies with the same tiny, generic baby faces.

"Nah," Eric says, "He looks like Feeny."

Cory lets this ridiculous statement sit there a moment before he asks, "Why would he look like Mr. Feeny?"

"Beats me."

It's then that Cory notices that Barnabus is wearing a tiny blazer and what Cory is pretty certain is a baby-sized ascot. God, Eric is so weird.

Just then, Tom enters the bar with two guys who are also wearing conference badges. He gives Cory a wave of acknowledgement and then continues on over to a more private booth with the guys. Cory feels a bit of guilt at seeing Tom networking, as Cory should be doing.

"I know that guy!" Eric declares.

"No you don't. He's my boss."

"No, I've met him before." Eric frowns, "Ah-ha! Jack's wedding. That's it. He was with Shawn."

"Oh, yeah," Cory replies. That would've been around the time Tom and Shawn were dating.

"I don't like that guy."

"What? Why?"

Eric continues giving Tom a look of distaste across the bar, then he looks back to Cory. "What did Shawn ever tell you about Jack's wedding?"

"Just that he was pretty messed up at the time. And that you were kind to him."

"Well, I understood where he was coming from."

"What do you mean?" If Eric had a past drug problem, this is news to Cory. For a moment, he finds himself feeling concerned for Eric, which is not something he's ever felt. They've always had a bit of a strained relationship and Cory's rarely felt much affection for his brother. Despite having grown up together, Cory seldom saw Eric as anything more than an annoyance. It's always surprised Cory a little, the way that Morgan, or even Shawn, seemed to actually  _like_  Eric. Maybe it's too many years of having been the tormented younger brother or having Eric regularly cause problems that Cory then had to figure out how to fix; Cory's just never been able to feel much more than irritation toward his brother. Or resentment.

"My brother didn't want me to be the Best Man either," Eric explains.

"Oh." Of course Jack hadn't picked Shawn as his Best Man. Of course Shawn was upset about it. Of course Eric had related to Shawn's hurt feelings. And of course Eric's still mad about something that happened almost ten years ago. Cory feels, as he always does when Eric brings this up, that he ought to apologize, though he doesn't really feel that bad about it. "I'm sorry you weren't my first choice to be Best Man, Eric."

Eric shrugs. "Considering you're now fucking your first choice for Best Man, I can't take it too personally."

Cory ignores this statement and finds his gaze drawn to Barnabus. Bringing up the wedding again just reminds him that this was supposed to be the whole point: getting to have one of those. Reluctantly, he drags himself back to the topic of Jack's wedding. "So, what did Tom do that was so bad?"

"He was hitting on me. Shawn was right there and he just spent the entire day trying to get in my pants." Eric shakes his head judgmentally, "Not classy."

"You sure you didn't just think that?"

Eric holds up his hands, "Hey, I know a little something about hitting on people."

Cory can't argue with that.

"So your boyfriend's ex-boyfriend is your boss now?" Eric asks as if he's just processed this information. "That's dumb."

Cory can't really argue with that either. It's really bad if even Eric can see the trouble here. Cory takes another long swig of beer and reminds himself that there isn't actually any trouble. It's a weird situation, but it's working okay.

Eric reaches over the bar and helps himself to several stems of maraschino cherries and dumps them in his club soda. No one seems to notice or say anything because this is how Eric travels through life. "The problem is," Eric says, "You trust everybody way too easily."

"I do not," Cory argues automatically, even though he knows Eric is right. Somehow Eric is always right about these kinds of things, about people's interior natures. He's weirdly perceptive. It's unnerving.

"And Trailer Boy, well...he doesn't trust anybody."

"He trusts  _me_."

"Yeeaaah," Eric stretches out his reply while cocking his head, "Don't fuck that up."

"I won't."

"Eh, you will." Eric giggles a little and pops two cherries in his mouth.

"I won't."

"How come you haven't come out to visit?" Eric asks him suddenly, turning to him with an intense look.

Cory thinks immediately of several excuses he can give but, instead he hears himself telling Eric the truth. "I'm jealous."

"Of this little guy?" Eric asks, nodding down at Barnabus. Then he smiles dreamily. "Yeah. You should be. He's awesome."

Eric is still for a moment, admiring his son, then he asks, "How's Pangers?"

"Doing all right. I'm seeing her next week, actually. She has something she wants to talk about in person."

"She's pregnant."

Cory's heart stops for a beat at this statement. Then it is flooded with disappointment as he does the math. "No. The last time we slept together was eleven months ago."

"That doesn't matter."

"It kinda does."

"Pfft," Eric blows off thousands of years of human biology, "Pregnant. Totally pregnant."

Cory grunts and chugs the remainder of his beer. Eric, as usual, seems to have no comprehension of how cruel he's actually being. He knows the difficult history Cory and Topanga had around this for years. He must know how the current state of their relationship has made the whole idea of Cory ever having a kid even more impossible and painful. And yet, here Eric is jabbering on like an idiot about it, like always. No wonder Cory avoids his brother, even from across the country. Eric may not be the complete idiot he comes off as, but he can be pretty thoughtless and destructive, even if it is unintentional.

"Have you met Dipthi?"

Cory looks over in surprise as Eric introduces the woman sitting to the other side of him. She looks up from her phone on which she's been answering emails since Cory came into the bar. "Uh, no. Hi," Cory shakes her hand, "Nice to meet you."

She smiles and turns Cory's badge, which has twisted itself around, to face outward so she can read his affiliation. "Ah," she says, "You guys stole our biggest client this year."

Cory falters awkwardly as he realizes this woman works for their closest rival, the production company on 47th Street. "Uh, sorry about that," he says. Internally, he curses Eric for carrying on this completely personal and embarrassing conversation loudly beside one of Cory's professional rivals. And God only knows what Eric was saying to her before Cory arrived. Dammit. How does Eric manage to engineer disaster in such tiny periods of time?

Dipthi shrugs. "Obviously, you could offer something we couldn't. This guy's right, though," she says, patting Eric on the shoulder, "Tom is an asshole."

"Why do you say that?"

"'Cause I used to work with him." Dipthi finishes her cocktail with one final gulp and then stands up. As she leaves a tip on the bar, she tells Cory, "A word to the wise: get out before it's too late. It was nice to meet both of you."

Cory watches, dumbfounded, as she walks out of the bar.

"That's what you need, Cor," Eric cheerfully, "Some smart women back in your life again. You should go work for her."

"God, Eric," Cory mutters, feeling about a hundred times worse than he did before he came into the bar, "Just shut up."

* * *

Eric ends up staying longer than Cory had expected. Barnabus keeps sleeping and Cory has two more beers. His tension thaws a bit, listening to Eric talk about his life. He's ended up working at the Seattle zoo, of all places. It had seemed utterly absurd when Cory first heard about it, but the more he learned about Eric's job there-leading kids programs, driving the zoo tram and narrating tours-the more it sounded like the perfect place for him. Sarah, Eric's wife, is a large animal vet at the same zoo; it's where they met. Cory actually likes Sarah a lot. She's smart and funny and completely unlike all the girls Eric used to go for. It's a great mystery to the Matthews family what she saw in Eric, but it cannot be denied that they get along terrifically and seem crazy about each other. Cory's glad for his brother. Eric seems completely content with his life, which has not always been the case.

When Barnabus does finally wake up, they move to the much quieter hotel lobby and Eric lets Cory feed his nephew his bottle. Holding this tiny little baby in his arms, Cory has to struggle hard not to get choked up.

"Sorry," he says, "I just...it's hard because I always thought I'd be a dad."

Eric gives him a strange look. "You already are a dad."

Cory wants to slug him. "Topanga is not pregnant."

"I'm not talking about Topanga. Though-" Eric cuts himself off at that statement, and switches back to his original point, "Doesn't your boyfriend's soap opera include a long lost daughter?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Come on. Don't tell me Shawnie doesn't want to share. One thing that guy never was was selfish."

"No, he's not selfish," Cory says, but he's distracted as he recalls all the times Shawn's tried to involve him with Sadie, asked him his advice, invited him to spend time with them, and how Shawn's gradually given up on doing that as Cory has continued to refuse. Shawn's been trying to share the biggest part of his life with Cory, trying to give Cory this experience that he wants so bad...and Cory's been a colossal dick about it, just because it wasn't exactly the way he wanted it to be. Goddamit. He's still letting his attachment to that perfect life he imagined for himself at fourteen blind him to the good things that are right in front of him. That imaginary perfect life is so much more powerful than Cory ever realized.

"I better get this guy home," Eric says, taking Barnabus back from Cory and adjusting his ascot tenderly. "You'll figure it out, Cor."

"Figure what out?"

Eric shrugs and throws Barnabus's diaper bag over his shoulder, "Everything."

Then he tosses Cory one of those perfect Eric Matthews smiles and waves goodbye.

"Take care, Eric," Cory says, and then adds, surprising himself, "I'll see you soon, okay?"

"I'll hold you to that. Give my love to Trailer Boy."

After Eric has gone, taking his strange air of lopsided cheer with him, Cory remains seated in the hotel lobby and lets depression creep up on him. He thinks about how he has repeatedly refused Shawn's invitations to be a part of his life with Sadie and how it's been a while since Shawn even bothered asking. Cory wonders if that opportunity has passed. Shawn's gone on to have this part of his life, this massive, important part of his life without Cory. And being left out of that is Cory's own fault for being bitter and continuing to cling to his stupid fantasy life.

Shawn had once tentatively suggested the idea of adoption sometime down the road. But Cory had immediately blown him off because it didn't fit with the image Cory had held in his heart all these years. He thinks about it now, though, and it still feels no more viable. Cory doesn't even know if Shawn was really interested in that; most likely he only said it because he thought it would make Cory happy. But Shawn's got his kid already. Sadie's plenty for him to handle, even just visiting a couple days a month. Cory isn't sure if Shawn could, or would even want to, upend his life even more for another kid. Shawn barely manages to take care of himself. Truth be told, Cory barely manages to take care of  _Shawn_. Who the heck does Cory think he is, wanting someone else to look after and worry about and care about and love? Isn't Shawn enough?

On that thought, Cory takes out his phone. Time to find out how much trouble Shawn's gotten into when left on his own. When Shawn answers, though, his voice is calm, if quiet.

"Why are you whispering?" Cory asks.

"Sadie's sleeping on me. Poor kid's got a cold."

"Oh. Well, make sure she stays hydrated and gets plenty of rest. And keep an eye on her temperature. There's children's Tylenol in the-"

"I know, Cor. I can handle it."

Cory feels more useless than ever. All he wants to do is take care of everybody, but nobody even needs him. He looks out at the fountain in the lobby, watches the water cascading down in carefully engineered patterns. "I saw Eric," he offers.

Shawn's voice brightens noticeably at the mention of Eric. "How's he doing?"

"Great."

"How's the baby?"

"Beautiful. I was thinking, Shawnie. We should start working on Anna now to see if we can take Sadie on a trip out to Seattle this summer."

Shawn hesitates and Cory wonders if Shawn is contemplating the "we" Cory just used in that statement. "I don't know, Babe," he says finally. The mention of Anna seems to have made him tense. Or maybe it was that "we."

Cory continues on anyway, "I think Sadie would really like to visit Eric and Sarah at the zoo. You know they'd give her special tours and let her see some of the animals up close and everything. I just think...maybe that'd be nice for her."

There's a pause again that Cory doesn't know how to interpret. Then Shawn says, "She'd love that. You're right. I don't think it could ever happen, but it's sweet of you to think about it."

It's a brush-off and it leaves Cory deflated. "Okay. Well, it was just an idea. I guess I'll let you go. It's late there."

"It is. Yeah."

"Goodnight, Shawnie."

"Night, Cor."

Cory ends the call and trudges up to his hotel room. Somehow it seems more sterile and lonely than he remembers. He sits down on the bed to take off his shoes and socks and muses that he can still feel the gentle weight of Barnabus in his arms. He thinks about Eric and Shawn and their babies and how he has screwed up not only his chance to have one of his own, but also his chance to share in their experience. Cory's been pushing them both away out of jealousy and now he's starting to believe that if you push long enough, the people you care about won't always come back. He's been a lousy friend and brother to them both.

Just as he's thinking this, there's a knock on the door. Cory finds Tom on the other side.

"I saw you down in the lobby," Tom says. "You looked pretty down and out."

Cory doesn't know how to respond to this. His first instinct is to unburden himself to Tom, tell him everything he's been feeling, hope that somebody gives him a little sympathy even if it is Tom. But his second instinct is to button his lips. It's none of Tom's business, and Tom is not to be trusted, right?

Then Tom holds up a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. "Wanna talk about it?" he asks, "Or at least drown your sorrows?"

And Tom looks so friendly just then, with his farmboy smile and his Calvin Klein model looks. He never makes Cory feel bad or reminds him of all the ways he's screwed up. Tom always talks about all the things Cory's good at, all the ways Cory's doing everything right. It wouldn't be the end of the world to let Tom make him feel better for a little bit, right?

Cory gives up and steps aside. "Come on in."

* * *

Shawn wakes up on Saturday with a sore throat and a stuffed-up head. He also wakes up with a miserably sick kid. Blearily, he takes her temperature, gives her more Tylenol, and sets her up with juice and Jello in a pile of blankets with Saturday morning cartoons. She seems fairly cheerful, considering he can tell she feels like crap.

He feels like crap too. In the kitchen he sips black coffee and wishes he had some whiskey to dollop into it. It's his own fault that they aren't allowed to have that anymore and he's more than a little ashamed about this. Despite that reminder of his screw-ups, and despite feeling like his head had been pumped full of pudding overnight, Shawn feels a little bit proud of himself. He's taking care of his sick kid, like an honest-to-god parent, and doing just fine. Nothing awful has happened, Sadie will soon be on the mend, and Shawn can move onto whatever the next challenge is presented to him in this strange new course of his life. He feels ready. A little cocky even. He's got this.

He joins Sadie on the sofa, and she immediately crawls into his lap and burrows up against him. He knows she's being clingy because she doesn't feel well, but he still takes it as a kind of a compliment. She trusts him and feels safe with him. Shawn doesn't know that anyone's ever felt that way about him before. He imagines this must be what it feels like to be Cory-reliable, steady, having it all together. It feels good.

As she nods off again in his arms, he continues to think about Cory. Shawn really wishes Cory was here right now to share this moment. He'd like to show Cory that he's become this better person because of him. He can still remember when they were little kids, when they first met, how guilelessly affectionate Cory was, and how this had so confused Shawn. They didn't do hugs in Shawn's family. They didn't really do much affection at all. Cory Matthews, and the way he would take Shawn's hand when crossing the street together, or hug him goodbye when it was time to go home, was a revelation. Shawn learned that there was another way to be in the world, that Shawn's place might be more than just to stay out of his parents' way and try not to ask for too much. When it comes down to it, Cory taught Shawn the importance and the meaning of love.

He kisses the top of Sadie's head and is glad and so grateful that nobody is going to have to teach Sadie this later in life.

Shawn had become something of an affection junkie, he understands now. He'd spent so much of his life always trying to get another hit, trying to get some confirmation that he was likable, if not lovable. In high school he measured this in the number of girls he could get to kiss him and date him or, at one dark point, the number of hugs he could get from creeps who claimed to care about him but really just counted him in turn as another number accumulated to their ranks. He could count on one hand the number of times his father had hugged him, though most of those were for show, and he remembered every single time that Chet had ruffled Shawn's hair and called him "SlimJim," which was about as genuinely affectionate as his dad got.

As he got older, the stakes seemed to get higher and Shawn felt a growing desperation to fill that need. Angela had been surprised at how often he wanted to hold her hand in public, or rest a possessive arm over her shoulder or around her waist. She didn't feel the same way as he did, that more demonstrations of affection meant more affection; to her mind it had diminishing returns and she sometimes found PDA a little embarrassing. She got well-practiced at removing his hand from her ever-so-casually when it started to annoy her. She was more experienced than he was at that point, anyway, and hand-holding to her felt like child's play compared to sex. Angela had actually wanted to consummate their relationship much earlier than Shawn had been ready to. He'd gotten pretty good at oral in his Casanova years, so she didn't mind delaying until Shawn felt ready to take it to that next step, though she admitted it made her uneasy how big of a deal he was making it out to be. His insistence on waiting until a more ceremonial, monumental time like Prom Night, for instance, was border-line Topanga-esque, and she felt he was putting undue pressure on himself for what was likely to be a fairly disappointing first go. But she humored him. Angela was nothing if not a good sport.

He'd been so nervous to do it, built it up so much in his head as the ultimate confirmation of his lovability and value. And, yes, it hadn't been the most incredible performance-he'd come quickly and awkwardly, and been flush with embarrassment. But Angela had been sweet and waited around with him in the dark back seat of the limo until he was ready to go again and that second time, as she had told him it would be, had been better. To Shawn's mind it had been magical. He'd never felt so close to anyone. And he redoubled his efforts to catch that kind of euphoric intimacy again and again.

He thought it would always feel like that. When he made it to college and there were so many other people around-guys and girls who were interested in him in an environment that was so much freer than their claustrophobic John Adams social circle-he'd gotten greedy about it and took what he'd had with Angela for granted. He was eager to experience sex with more people because, to his mind at that point, more still equated with better. He was surprised and disappointed to find that, with other people, it felt a lot more empty. The only people it ever felt amazing with were Angela and Cory. And when stupid Shawn finally realized this, neither of them wanted to have him anymore. So Shawn took affection where he could get it.

After Angela and Cory, Shawn learned to separate sex from his emotions. It was still a conquest he felt compelled to make, and make as often as possible, but no matter how many times he did it, how many strange men and women he hooked up with at parties and in public washrooms and nightclubs and some very dark times in fucking alleys, it never felt fully satisfying. The diminishing returns that Angela, always so much wiser than him, especially at seventeen, had predicted came to be a prophecy fulfilled. And he'd turned to drugs and alcohol in those years to numb himself from this truth. Then it all became blurry.

Nowadays, Shawn likes sex as much as the next guy, has what he considers to be a healthy libido, but after all those years of empty, soul-killing sex, it's never fully lost a hint of an association with that in his mind. Sex itself is no longer at the top of his affection pyramid. Being close in other ways, through more rare acts of gentle affection, the stuff you can't make happen with just anyone, all of that is much more important to him.

He sighs as he considers his current predicament. Once again, it means more to him than it does to the other person. Once again, Shawn's attached more importance than he probably should have to the affection he gets from other people. Once again, he fears, Cory sees their romantic relationship as just another stop on the path to wherever the hell it is Cory ultimately envisions himself getting to. Once again, Shawn's becoming more certain, Cory is about to leave him for someone better. Once again, Shawn's going to find himself alone and abandoned and empty.

But Shawn pulls Sadie closer to him and steels himself against this knowledge. He will not, once again, let Cory Matthews not loving him enough send him down that long, dark spiral of self-destruction and despair. Just the thought of Cory leaving him makes Shawn feel inexorably pulled toward that fate, but he will not do that this time. He has something else to live for, someone else to love. Shawn's father treated his son as something less than even an afterthought. Chet spent Shawn's whole life chasing after the person that he loved and falling into despair when he couldn't have her. Shawn will not let that history repeat itself.

Instead he will stay right here and work on letting Sadie know with such certainty that she is loved that she won't have to spend a lifetime searching for confirmation of this. If that's the ultimate outcome of Shawn's years-long struggle with being an affection junkie, then perhaps it was all worth it.

* * *

Saturday at the conference is a whirlwind. There are seminars and panels and so, so many damn networking events. It doesn't help that Cory has a painful hangover to contend with. It was worth it, though. He had a great time with Tom last night. Tom had mostly done the talking, telling Cory funny stories about the folks he was networking with at the bar and gossiping about other vendors and rivals and clients Cory was likely going to meet. It was fun and harmless and it got Cory's mind off things. And it did make Cory feel good. Tom was so flattering, telling him repeatedly how Cory was going to charm these people when he met them, how impressive his work is, how much better this is going to be than last year's conference when Tom was stuck with a total deadweight. Maybe it was the wine or Cory's rotten state of mind beforehand or a combination of both, but those were exactly the kinds of things Cory needed to hear. He went to sleep with a smile on his face.

Tom's a good guy. If the only time Eric met him was when Tom and Shawn were having major problems and Shawn was, he would readily admit himself, an extremely difficult person to be around, of course Tom would be at his worst. And if that Dipthi woman used to work with Tom and now works for his rival company, of course she wouldn't like him. Cory can't blame them for feeling the way they do. But he's also gonna take what they say with a grain of salt; they don't know Tom like he does.

Cory sighs and sips his complimentary cup of Starbucks and heads into yet another ballroom for yet another mixer. Tom had been with him for all the panels and demonstrations up until lunchtime, but now they've split up in an attempt to cover more ground. The plan is to reconvene this evening for the vendor parties. Tom has gone on about these vendor parties all week. Apparently Saturday night all the conference attendees just hop from one party to the next, "networking" and collecting free drinks and food. Cory's not all that impressed with the idea (he's never been a big party guy), but Tom's enthusiasm about it is a little bit contagious. If nothing else, Cory's curious to see what it looks like.

"Hey, Cory Matthews."

Cory turns around in surprise and finds himself face to face with Dipthi. She's much tinier than he realized last night, not even five feet tall, but she's wearing at least five-inch heels. Somehow she's incredibly intimidating; Topanga had that same quality.

"Hi," he says, feeling like he should apologize, but not sure for what.

"You did the stuff for Hanlon, didn't you?"

Cory did almost all the work on that account. He's surprised that she knows this. "Uh, yeah. I did."

"Nice work."

"Really?" And he wants to kick himself for that reply. He should've just thanked her and maintained what little cool he has.

But she smiles at his response and gives him a brotherly punch to the shoulder. "Yeah, really. You've done some nice stuff. I wish I'd found you first. Where did you study?"

Dipthi seems interested to hear Cory's story and once they get to talking, Cory finds she's a lot less intimidating. She's actually really nice. And smart. She's knows a lot about their industry. She's probably the last person at the conference Tom intended for Cory to be networking with, but he's glad he did. They end up talking through the whole mixer and Cory finds himself disappointed when it turns out they're attending different panels for the next slot.

"See you at the vendor parties tonight, huh?" Dipthi smiles as they part company.

"Yeah, probably," Cory replies, pleased about this. He gives her a wave before he heads off toward his assigned conference room. As he walks through the lobby, he can't help but think about how much easier it would be to work for someone like Dipthi instead of dealing with all the personal complications of working with Tom. He feels guilty for thinking about this, though. Tom's been so good to him. Especially these past couple weeks when Cory's been dropping the ball to take care of Shawn.

Shawn. Missing him as much as ever, Cory takes out his phone and sends him a quick text before the next panel starts:

_I miss your tushie._

He receives a surprisingly quick reply:

_Please don't ever text the word "tushie" to me again._

Then Cory smiles as he gets another text from Shawn almost immediately:

_But I miss yours too. Bring it back here soon._

* * *

When TV got too boring and Sadie was already on her third juice box and getting cranky, Shawn took her for a change of scenery into the big bed and started telling her stories while she drew pictures on her jumbo paper pad, which she'd picked out last time they were at the toy store. Shawn took the opportunity to try out some potential Trixie O'Zero plots and was pleased to find that Sadie really liked them. Then Sadie started telling her own stories, to Shawn's delight. Though they weren't the most sensical plots, they were quite funny and creative. Shawn could've sat there all day listening to her telling them, but she started coughing and then wheezing a little, which concerned him. So he brought the storytelling reluctantly to a close and switched to playing boardgames as a less talky activity, all the while keeping an ear on her wheezing. If she was coming down with bronchitis, he might just have to take her in to get some antibiotics.

Amy Matthews had sent the boardgames home with Cory after one weekend when he was visiting. Josh was too old for them and she thought Sadie might enjoy them. They haven't really gotten touched until now, but Shawn's glad to finally have an opportunity to bust them out. Usually at Cory's house when they were growing up, they'd play basketball or Nintendo, but sometimes Amy insisted they do something that Morgan could play too, so they'd inevitably end up around the kitchen table playing Candy Land or Cutes 'n Ladders or Sorry. And Eric usually ended up joining at some point too (especially if it was Candy Land-Eric had perhaps an unhealthy love for playing Candy Land). Shawn secretly loved those days the best, though he would never, ever have admitted it then. Those times were when he most felt like he had brothers and a sister. Playing these games now with Sadie, Shawn feels like he could be right back in the Matthews' sunny kitchen.

They run through an entire box of Kleenex between them while they play several rounds of Sorry and Candy Land. On Chutes 'n Ladders, though, they both get stuck around the middle of the game board, each rolling a chute every time it seems like they've escaped to the top level of the board. It keeps up for far too long until Sadie starts getting really frustrated and wheezing more and Shawn decides to put an end to it. He rolls the dice for her, purposefully miscounts spaces on the board and lands her game piece in the winning spot. "You win," he says.

"But you cheated," she protests as he folds up the game board and puts it away.

"Well as my dad used to say," Shawn says, dusting off his gruff old Chet impression, "It ain't a game if it ain't rigged."

"I thought you didn't have a dad."

"Who told you that?"

"Mom says you don't have any family. Mom says you're like Annie."

Shawn's annoyance at Anna telling Sadie this is tempered somewhat by his amusement at being compared to the little singing redhead in Sadie's favorite movie.

"I have a lot of family," he tells her, "I have Jack, my brother, and my Uncle Mike. And Chet. He was my real dad. He passed away, though." Shawn pauses here, uncertain how well Sadie understands death.

"Like my Grandpa Jim?" she asks.

"Yeah," Shawn says, remembering that Anna's dad had died a few years back. "Your Grandpa Jim and your Grandpa Chet are both passed away."

Sadie seems to consider this. "Do you have a mom?"

Ha. There's a simple question with a complicated answer. Shawn decides to leave his birth mother out of the equation and just answers with the still fairly complex, "I had a stepmom. Virna. She sort of raised me. But Cory's mom, Mrs. Matthews, she's like my mom. She sort of raised me too."

"So you have two moms?"

Shawn smiles at this. "You could say that, sure."

"That's like me."

"You don't have two moms."

"I have two dads."

"Who's your other Dad?" Shawn asks, trying not to sound as irritated as he suddenly feels. If Anna has a serious boyfriend, this is the first he's heard about it. Seems like something she should have mentioned, especially if this guy's trying to muscle his way into being Sadie's dad.

"Cory!" She laughs at Shawn for forgetting about him.

Shawn feels like his heart might explode, hearing this. God, he wishes Cory was here. "Do you like having two Dads?" he asks her tentatively.

She shrugs. "It's okay. My friend Tyler has two dads too." She crawls into his lap again and puts her head against his chest. She's so clingy today. "What was your dad like?"

"My dad? Uh..." Shawn pats her hair absently and struggles to find something appropriate he can say about his dad to Sadie. "He was funny. He told a lot of stories."

"Like you."

"Huh. Yeah, I guess that's true." Shawn's never really made this connection before.

"Did he write books too?"

"No," Shawn laughs at the absurdity of this idea, "My dad didn't really like books much."

"Did he look like you?"

Shawn cocks his head, thinking about it. "A little bit. He was taller than me, though, and kinda fat."

Sadie giggles and Shawn just knows that she is trying to picture this. "I look like you," she says then.

He kisses the top of her head. "You do."

"I'm glad you're my dad."

Shawn's so grateful that Sadie's head is down low and she can't see the tears brimming in his eyes. "I'm glad too."

* * *

Cory sips champagne and pops another mini quiche in his mouth. This is fabulous. He's on party number four (or is it five?) and having a grand old time. He's met so many people and is feeling like he's really hit it off with just about all of them. His pocket is full of business cards, his belly full of free booze and snacks, and his brain is full of dozens of jokes at the ready. He really wishes he could be this charming and funny when he isn't seriously buzzed, but that's the way it's always been. There's regular, boring old Cory and then highly entertaining, everybody loves him Party Cory. And Party Cory is showing no signs of slowing down. Especially not while Tom is helping to keep him lubricated.

"Ready to hit the Canon party?" Tom asks, taking Cory's now-empty plastic champagne glass and replacing it with a fresh cocktail.

"Bring it on," Cory laughs.

"I've never seen this side of you, Matthews," Tom muses as they make their way through the crowd.

"Get me drunk at more parties and you will," Cory replies.

Cory really goes to town at the Canon party. He gets separated from Tom, but it doesn't matter and Cory manages to meet a lot more people and down several more drinks. Then at some point he finds himself telling a hilarious story about Nana Boo-Boo's lasagna to a couple of complete strangers. And they're laughing and he's feeling pleased with himself, then Dipthi is there giving him an odd look and when she takes his arm gently and leads him off to a more private corner of the room, he goes with her.

"You remind me so much of my wife," he tells her, giggling a little. "Ex-wife. Almost ex-wife. We're almost there."

She takes the drink from his hand and sets it on the ledge of a potted plant. "You need to go up to your room now," she tells him.

"Are you hitting on me?"

"Yeah, no. You're drunk, Cory Matthews. Go home."

Cory frowns. "You're just trying to get me out of here because we're competition."

"Not like that you're not." Dipthi adjusts her glasses and leans in close to whisper to him. "Listen. You're making a fool of yourself. And you seem like a nice guy and I don't like to see that happen. Especially not when Tom Larson is egging you on for his own amusement. I can't stand him and I can't stand it when he does this stuff."

Cory's heart sinks. "Is that what's happening?"

She pats his arm sympathetically. "Get out while you're still charming. Go upstairs and start sleeping off that massive hangover you've just booked for tomorrow."

Feeling like a complete idiot, Cory heads out of the party and wanders into the lobby. Throwing himself woozily into an empty sofa by the same fountain he'd found mesmerizing the night before, he realizes just how drunk he is. How did that happen so fast?

He sits there for what seems like a long time, going over the last couple hours' events in his mind, trying to decide if he really had made a fool of himself. Maybe a little bit. Not too bad, though, he doesn't think, though he's not ready to trust his own judgement at the moment. Dipthi was probably right to take him aside when she did. He's lucky. But, god, it's embarrassing that a professional acquaintance-a rival, no less-felt the need to step in and cut him off. Cory's never been able to handle being really drunk...he doesn't know what he was thinking, letting it go that far...he's such a dumbass.

Then Tom appears and slumps down next to Cory. "I was looking for you," he says.

Cory shakes his head. "Sorry if I embarrassed you tonight."

Tom looks bewildered. "How would you embarrass me? You're quite the charming drunk."

"I don't think I'm as charming as I think I am."

Tom laughs as the nonsensical nature of that statement and Cory finds himself laughing too. He feels better already, just having Tom here. Tom's very reassuring. He always makes Cory believe that he's the funniest, smartest guy Tom's ever met.

"You know what's weird?" Tom says then.

"What?"

"I don't miss Kyle at all."

"Mmm," Cory shrugs. "He never seemed like that fun of a guy."

"Nah. You're right. He was great in the sack, though. I guess I miss that. Don't miss  _him_ , though. Thought I would."

"Are you lonely?" Cory asks, "I'd be lonely."

"A little. How are you, Cory?"

"Me? I'm fine. I mean, I'm drunk and I'm feeling pretty dumb, but I'm, you know, I'm fine."

"Takes a lot out of you, being with someone you have to babysit all the time."

Cory bristles a little at the term "babysitter." It seems insulting to both him and Shawn. But he can't deny that the last few weeks, the last few months, really, have been exhausting. Cory's always worried that Shawn's going to stumble into some kind of trouble, make some destructive decision, fall off the wagon, run away, any number of things. And this isn't even including Cory's persistent insecurity that Shawn's going to wake up one day and notice all the attractive, more exciting people out there just dying to get with him. Cory hasn't felt fully relaxed in a long time.

"It's not like that," Cory mumbles half-heartedly.

"You know, I get it. There's something about him, right? I mean, I never totally got over him. Even after all that shit he put me through, I'd still fuck him..."

Tom trails off, seeming lost in his thoughts, while Cory sits beside him appalled. Did Tom just tell him that he wanted to fuck Shawn? Or is he talking about some time in the past? Cory's head feels far too cloudy to figure it out. Why did he drink so much tonight?

"It's so funny," Tom continues, "All those years he was obsessed with you...You know, you were just some guy from his childhood, off being married and straight, or whatever...and he never stopped being hung up on you. It was kinda pathetic, but, you know, kinda endearing in a weird way..."

Cory stares into the fountain, feeling strange and sick and wishing he was home right now with Shawn. Tom is just as stupid a drunk as Cory is. Cory suddenly remembers the way Tom touched Shawn at their dinner party all those weeks back and feels that protective-possessive rage boil up in his stomach again. And that leads him to think again about those videos, that one video of Tom and Shawn fucking and that rage is replaced with a helpless despair. What is Cory doing here?

"And I thought," Tom says, "Sure, I'll give this guy a job. I admit it. I just did it to get on Shawn's good side. I didn't know you from Adam, but it was a fucking entry level job, what did I care? And I figured, for sure there was no way it was gonna last with you two. There was no way, no matter who you were, that you were gonna live up to his expectations. He'd built you up so much in his mind all those years...And then I met you and...you're awesome, Cory."

"What?" Cory turns to him confusion. He tries unsuccessfully to blink his way through the fog of his brain.

Tom laughs in a self-deprecating way. "I thought once you were gone I'd have another shot at him. He'd be all crushed again that the love of his life wasn't anything like he was supposed to be and, hey, here's Tom right here with a nice big sympathetic shoulder to cry on! It's stupid, I know, but it's seriously what I thought...Anyway, now? Now I couldn't give less of a fuck about him. I want you."

"What?" Cory asks again. He's so lost with what the hell Tom is talking about.

And then Tom is kissing him.


	10. Go Home

Cory wishes later he could say that he pushed Tom off right away. He wishes he could say that, as soon as he realized what was going on, he put a stop to it. That, yes, Tom kissed him, but it was only a second before Cory broke it off. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Half a minute. Less than a minute. A minute, just a minute.

He wishes he could say that it was all Tom's doing and that Cory didn't kiss back.

He wishes he could say that he didn't like it.

Cory wishes later that he could say a lot of things were different about tonight than are actually the case.

* * *

"All right, kiddo, get dressed. We're going to the doctor," Shawn says when he's finally worried enough about Sadie's wheezing.

"No! I don't wanna go."

"Yes. Come on, out of your pajamas. Scoot." He ushers her into her bedroom to change her clothes and then returns to his laptop to double-check the location of the twenty-four hour immediate care clinic he's looked up online. It's a short cab ride away. He's not crazy about taking Sadie to what will likely be a skeevy clinic, particularly on a Saturday night, but her wheezing just doesn't sound right to him and it seems like it's getting more frequent.

He toys with whether or not he should call Anna and tell her what he's doing, but he ultimately decides to nix that idea. It'd probably just open another can of worms of an argument about something stupid, and it's not that big a deal anyway. Shawn's hope is that they get in, get a diagnosis, get a prescription of something helpful and get home in time for a not-too-late bedtime.

While he's thinking about this, Shawn takes another dose of Dayquil. His own cold has gotten pretty miserable over the course of the day. To his surprise, though, he's managed to not let it get in the way too much. Normally, Shawn's a complete baby when he gets sick, he'd freely admit. When a cold or a flu hits, he's under the covers with his whiskey and his horror movies and not coming out for days. This time, though, Sadie's care has taken precedence, and he's amazed at how little the fact that he's sick too has mattered to him. It's an annoying distraction, not an opportunity for wallowing in self-pity as it's always been before. He's not exactly displeased about this development. As un-fun as it is taking care of a sick kid, this weekend has done a lot for making Shawn feel like he's maybe on the right track in at least one aspect of his life.

"What's the hold-up?" he asks, popping into her bedroom to check on her. Immediately, his heart breaks at the sight of her, flushed and unhappy, half-dressed and laying with her face pressed to the bedspread.

"Oh, Babe," he says, sitting beside her and picking her gently back up into a sit, "I'm sorry you feel so lousy. I promise you'll feel better soon."

As he helps her finish dressing her little body, he idly considers if she's tall for her age or short or average; he has no idea, but he feels like this is something he should know. He's also curious to see how she ends up. Anna's tall and Shawn's pretty sure he remembers her saying she was tall as a kid. Shawn was tall for a while, one of the tallest boys in middle school, then he'd somehow ended up shorter than most of the other guys by the end of high school, as if biology had played a big joke on him. It was a great disappointment to his teenage self. He wonders what Anna thinks about the fact that her kid has a short father, if that's one of the many things she finds annoying about him. It mattered to Anna back when they were dating-he remembers her specifically telling him that he wasn't her usual type, that she preferred guys who were taller than her, but that she'd made an exception because Shawn always had access to good drugs. Jesus. How did a beautiful thing like Sadie come out of such a fucked-up relationship? A biological joke indeed.

Once she's dressed, Shawn has a look at her and knows he ought to at least comb her hair, but decides it's better not to push it. Let his sick kid have messy hair. If the folks at the clinic want to judge his parenting by it, fuck 'em.

"All right," he says, "Let's go."

"Daddy, I don't wanna," Sadie protests in a half-hearted whine, "Please don't make me go."

"Shhh, shhh," he says, attempting to soothe her because she's wheezing again as she says this. There's a panicky quality to it that he really doesn't like.

"No, Daddy, no..." She's laboring to breathe now, taking in short, sharp whistling wheezes.

He continues to shush her, growing more alarmed. Then something changes and he realizes, with blood-chilling horror, that she's having an attack of some sort. She can't breathe. She starts panicking and gasping, waving her arms around, her face going completely white.

"Sadie, Sadie, Sadie, breathe honey, it's okay, it's okay, Daddy's here," he babbles in a voice that sounds shockingly neutral to his ears, trying to help her calm down and get air into her lungs.

_Oh dear God. Oh fucking shit..._

He puts his left hand to her chest and tries to get her to meet his eyes and hold them there as something reassuring for her to focus on, to distract her from whatever this attack is so she isn't so scared and can maybe more easily get some oxygen. With his right hand, he dials 911.

The hissing sound of Sadie struggling for breath and not being able to take it in is the most horrible thing Shawn's ever heard. It haunts his dreams for years after.

* * *

Tom is a really good kisser. This is the thought that occurs to Cory just after he gets over his momentary confusion and realizes what's going on. It is very nice kissing Tom. It is always nice being kissed when you are this sleepily, dreamily drunk and you were, just prior to being kissed, feeling like the biggest, dopiest loser in the world.

Cory kisses back hungrily, letting his body's instincts run the show, because it feels so fucking good. He's getting hard thinking about the fact that this is Tom who is kissing him so perfectly, Tom who is incredibly hot and whom Cory has been repressing a crush on for months. Tom wants Cory. And, at this second in time, Cory wants him back. Cory is painfully hard as Tom forces him back into the sofa and thrusts his tongue deeper into Cory's mouth.

Tom had said he wanted Cory more than he wanted Shawn. No one has ever picked Cory over Shawn, as a date, as a party invitee, as a gym class basketball team member, as a desired sexual conquest. There's something intoxicating about finally being in that position, for once being the first choice. Tom doesn't think Cory's boring or uncool or just average. He doesn't see Cory as second fiddle to Shawn or Topanga or Eric or anyone. He thinks Cory's awesome and wants him. None of these thoughts are articulated consciously in Cory's mind at this moment, the sum of them is just a rush of feeling more potent than Cory ever would have expected. He feels helpless to deny it; it just feels too good.

And then he thinks of Shawn. And what this means. And what Cory has just done.

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no.

All of the life drains out of Cory and he goes limp underneath Tom's advances. Tom continues moving in on him for a moment more before he realizes that Cory is no longer responding.

"Hey," Tom says, sitting back, "What's the matter?"

Cory can't even summon the energy to speak. He's just a dumb pile of skin on the sofa.

"I thought you wanted this," Tom says, seeming genuinely confused, "The way you're always looking at me..."

Cory says nothing. He can't even move his head to look over at him.

Tom looks incredulous and now a bit angry. "You liked it! You were just kissing me back." He gestures down at Cory's crotch, "You're fucking hard as a rock. I could feel it. I can see it right now."

Slowly, Cory starts to shake his head and struggles to summon a voice to speak with.

"I don't get you, Matthews," Tom says.

"I quit," Cory says in a voice so weak it's almost inaudible.

"What?"

"I quit, Tom," Cory says, "Being around you is ruining my life."

Tom just stares at him, mouth agape.

Somehow Cory finds that he is moving, that he is climbing to his feet and stepping over Tom. "I gotta go," Cory mutters, walking away, "I gotta go home."

* * *

They got lucky. The paramedics were just leaving a call two buildings over from Shawn's apartment when the dispatch came through. They were able to get Sadie right into the ambulance and breathing again before they even made it to the emergency room. It was a very serious asthma attack, Shawn was told when they finally got to St. Luke's and saw the doctor. Confused, Shawn replied that Sadie didn't have asthma and the doctor explained that unfortunately sometimes it's not until a kid has an attack that they get a diagnosis. The wheezing all day had probably been the first signs Sadie had ever shown of being asthmatic, the cold having likely helped bring the attack on.

Although Sadie was breathing normally again, the doctor wanted to hold her for observation for a bit and to get a second opinion when another doctor was available. It was so late, though, and Sadie in such a panicked state (understandably so), that they decided to sedate her and try to avoid triggering another bad attack.

Shawn had held tight to her throughout everything, but once she drifted off into a heavily medicated sleep, they said they needed him out of the way. So here he is now, banished to a plastic chair in the waiting room. With two seconds to breathe and think, the enormity of it all has finally started to hit him. His heart has been racing for at least two hours with no sign of letting up and now he's finding that he can't stop himself from shaking. He closes his eyes and tries to will his heart to slow and his body to stop trembling, but all the force of what little will he has left inside him doesn't help a bit. He would give just about anything for a stiff drink.

"Shawn?"

He opens his eyes and sees Anna, freshly arrived from Jersey, standing just inside the waiting room doors. He'd called her when they first got to the hospital. He doesn't even remember what he said. Shawn opens his mouth to say something, anything to her, but he can't find any words and closes it quickly, feeling like if he leaves it open any longer, he's going to throw up.

"Where is she?" Anna asks.

"She's...she's fine," he hears himself saying, "She's sleeping. They won't let anyone in there right now. They'll let us know, I guess, when she's up and we can see her."

"I need to speak to someone." Anna marches off down the hall and apparently does find someone to give her some information because he doesn't see her again for a while.

When Anna finally returns, she collapses into the seat next to him. Shawn can't bring himself to turn and look at her. He's still shaking like a lunatic and he squeezes his hands together in a vain attempt to cover it up. Some part of his brain tells him that she's going to assume he's on drugs if she sees him trembling like that and he knows that will only make things worse, if that's even possible.

To his surprise, she reaches over and puts a hand over his wrist to try and help him stop shaking.

"Sorry," he says, "I don't know why I can't stop it."

"You're in shock," she replies, matter-of-factly. "I had a car accident once. I was shaking just like that for hours afterwards."

"I'm not on anything," he blurts out, "I want you to know that. I'm not on anything."

"I believe you."

He takes a deep, shuddery breath. She's still holding onto his arm. He realizes now she's doing it as much because she  _needs_  something to hold onto. He bows his head in shame and says, "If you never want her to come see me again, I'm not gonna stop you."

"Huh?"

"You were right. I shouldn't be trusted with anyone. Definitely not Sadie. I am not fit to take care of anybody. I'm so stupid. So stupid. The first time she started wheezing, I should've had her at the hospital. I can't believe how dumb I was. I just thought she had bronchitis. I was going to take her to the fucking walk-in clinic. I'm such an idiot..."

He looks up at her finally, but she is not looking at him. Her gaze is fixed on the floor in front of them and, if possible, she looks as sick as he feels.

"You didn't know she had asthma," she says quietly but clearly. "You wouldn't have any reason to think that."

"I should've figured it out. I should've had her in that ambulance at the first sign."

"Shawn." She turns to face him, her dark eyes impossibly large on her pale face. "The doctor told me you did exactly what you were supposed to do. You kept her calm and kept the attack from being even worse. She could have died..."

At that word and that thought, Anna's voice cracks and she bursts into tears. Shawn puts his arms around her instinctively, forgetting everything that has ever passed between them. Anna folds her head into his shoulder and sobs. He finds himself soothing her and petting the back of her head exactly as he has done with Sadie. He doesn't notice that with this distraction, he has stopped trembling.

Eventually, Anna gets herself to a point of some composure and sits back, and wipes her sleeve across her face. Shawn hands her the package of Kleenex he's been carrying around all day in his breast pocket. She accepts it and runs through about six of them, wiping her face and blowing her nose. "Oh, god," she mutters, "Oh, god..."

Shawn slumps back in his chair, feeling incredibly exhausted. "I'm so sorry," he says.

Anna continues blowing her nose, then crosses the room to toss the used tissues in a waste basket. When she returns, she faces him and he could swear she looks nervous.

"I have to tell you something," she says.

He looks at her expectantly, but it takes her a minute to gather herself and find her voice. When she does finally speak, she averts her eyes and looks at the floor again. "I was told about two weeks ago," she says in a carefully measured, but shaky tone, "That I should have Sadie tested for asthma."

"What?"

"Her teacher said that she was wheezing a little when they were running around on the playground. I...I made an appointment to see the doctor, but, you know, my insurance is so shitty, and the earliest appointment I could get was next week..."

Anna trails off as Shawn processes this information. When he speaks his voice is very low because he is doing everything in his power not to raise it.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

Anna swallows hard. "I didn't think it was any of your business."

Then Shawn loses all ability to keep his voice low. "She almost died!"

"I know," Anna cries, "I know. I...I'm so stupid. I never thought, never  _ever_  thought anything would happen..."

Shawn is speechless. He is on his feet now, pacing as he struggles to put all of the rage and shock he is suddenly feeling into coherent words. He opens his mouth several times to speak, but nothing comes out until finally he throws his hands in the air. "You risked Sadie's safety just because it was more important to you that I be kept out of her life?"

"I didn't think about it that way," Anna says, tearing up again now, "It never even occurred to me to tell you."

"Because it never fucking occurred to you that I'm her parent too? That I'm responsible for her too? That I need to know these things? That maybe, I dunno, it might be important to tell me that my kid might have a disease that could fucking kill her? What is the matter with you?"

"I'm sorry! I am so sorry..."

"Arrgh!" Shawn growls inarticulately as he makes fists with his hands and continues pacing in frustration. Then he stops and jabs his finger in the air at her. "This is not happening anymore. No more. You are not keeping me out of her life in any way, shape, or form. If I have to get a fucking court order to have every last medical, dental, and school record copied and faxed to me on a daily basis, I will fucking do it."

Anna nods helplessly, which is only mildly satisfying to Shawn's rage. He scowls and throws one more declaration at her. "And we're putting her on my insurance. I have fucking great insurance!"

He realizes after he has said this last bit that, while it is a fairly factual and reasonable point for discussion, phrasing it this way sounds just slightly comical. Anna, in tears just a minute ago, cracks a smile.

"It's not funny," Shawn argues unconvincingly, exhaustion creeping back into him, "I'm serious."

"No," Anna says, "Please do it. I've been trying to get better insurance for her for years. Honestly? It would be a relief. Thank you for wanting to do that."

Shawn lowers himself wearily back into his chair. "I just want what's best for her," he says.

"I know. I appreciate that."

"Can we talk about the school thing again?" He asks.

Anna sighs. "We can, but not tonight, okay?"

Shawn sighs too. "Okay."

Then a nurse appears and tells them Sadie is awake. Before they go in to see her, though, the doctor comes out and speaks with both of them. She discusses briefly the things they need to do now and look out for and hands them a pile of literature and a boxed inhaler. Then they are handed off to an admin of some sort to fill out the stacks of paperwork necessary to bill the insurance and give Sadie the okay for release. Finally, they are allowed into the little curtained off room where Sadie looks absolutely tiny and frightened, sitting cross-legged atop the hospital bed.

Shawn stands back to let Anna go to her first, but Sadie climbs down from the bed, completely ignoring her mother and says, "Daddy, I wanna go home."

To Shawn's shock, Sadie walks past Anna and throws herself into his arms.

"Okay," he says and scoops her up. She buries her face against his shoulder and closes her eyes. He rests his chin on the top of her head and rubs her back. "Let's go home."

Anna looks at him uncertainly.

"Come on," Shawn tells her, "Just stay over."

And so they leave the hospital that night looking like any other family of mom, dad, and kid, grateful to be getting off so lightly.

* * *

Cory manages to get checked out of the hotel, into a cab, and negotiated (quite expensively) onto the last flight for the East coast leaving Seattle that night. With the difference in time zones and a layover in Pittsburgh, it won't be until morning that Cory will get back to New York, maybe twelve hours earlier than he otherwise would've gotten back had he stuck with his original ticket. But Cory doesn't care. He just needs to get home and needs to get as far away from Tom right now as he possibly can.

The flight is nearly empty and Cory's glad for this. He's in no mood to make small talk with strangers or to even just try to pretend that he's not feeling like he's coming apart inside. In the darkened cabin, he sits in an empty row, listening to other folks snoring or quietly tapping away on laptops. Cory has brought nothing to occupy himself-no computer or book or magazine. Instead he sits in his own self-assigned purgatory, alone with his thoughts.

He has quit his job. Absurdly, perhaps, this is the one thought Cory keeps grabbing onto to make him feel better, a buoy in the dark ocean of his guilt tonight. As bad as this is, it is not the worst of what he has done. And so he clings to it.

It's still plenty upsetting to think about. Cory has never just upped and quit a job like that. It goes entirely against his nature. Cory is reliable and predictable. Cory enjoys his  _life_  being reliable and predictable. While he's had a number of jobs he wasn't crazy about-boring jobs, irritating jobs, humiliating jobs-he's always either just seen them through like the born worker ant that he is or, in extreme cases, given his proper two weeks notice each time, wrapped in layers of apologies and deference.

Cory has never burned a bridge in his life. Now he's gone and walked out on a job he actually liked-a job he really, really, really liked more than any other job he'd ever had, and did so in the middle of the conference his company just paid a lot of money to send him to. Tom and everyone else invested time and money and trust in Cory and, with two seconds of thought, he threw it back in their faces and walked away. That bridge has been torched. He feels sick even thinking about trying to get another job again and having to explain this.

He holds onto the fact that he has quit his dream job in this terrible fashion as long as he can throughout his late night flight. Eventually, though, thoughts of the more egregious transgression he's committed this evening pull him under.

Yes, he kissed Tom. Yes, he allowed it to go on for too long. Yes, he enjoyed it and, for a brief moment in time, was an equal and eager participant, pushing for things to go further. But none of these facts are the worst part. The worst part, he knows, is yet to come. The worst part is that Cory is going to have to tell Shawn what happened. Cory's stomach turns over at the thought of what the news of these events is going to do to Shawn's trust in him.

Shawn Hunter's trust is rare as a goddamn unicorn and fragile as the threads of a cobweb. And when Cory comes clean to Shawn about what has happened, he might as well be sucking that trust up with an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner and dumping the remains in the trash. And then doing a Mexican hat dance around it. Cory's just about the only person who's never betrayed Shawn's trust. He can't even imagine what the fall-out of this is going to be like.

Cory wishes he didn't have to do this. He wishes he didn't have to hurt Shawn like this. He so wishes his own stupidity wasn't going to result in this decimation of all those years of hard-earned trust, putting Cory back at square one with the busload of others who hurt and betrayed Shawn all through his life. Tonight Cory's driving that fucking bus.

There is some tiny comfort in the back of Cory's mind, however. This is his knowledge that this transgression will not destroy their love. It's going to maim it, brutalize it, stomp on it, crush it, pour gasoline on it and set it alight, but it will not kill it. For all of the anxieties that have haunted Cory's mind this past almost-year and made him a mess of insecurities, the one thing Cory has never doubted is that he and Shawn's love for each other is indestructible. Shawn may not trust him, but Shawn will always love him. Cory knows this with absolute certainty, just as he knows that there is nothing, nothing that Shawn could do that would make Cory stop loving him.

But just because Shawn isn't going to stop loving him, Cory's not sure their relationship is going to make it through. Shawn has never been able to have the kind of blind faith that comes to Cory so naturally. For Shawn, trust is the same as love is the same as being together. If Shawn calls it quits on trusting Cory, Shawn's going to see it as quitting all of it. It's going to take incredible effort on Cory's part to convince him that all is not lost, that Shawn will eventually be able to trust Cory again, that he should even  _want_  to trust him again. Cory's not certain he's capable of convincing Shawn of this.

Cory's also not certain he should even be trying. The one thing he could always offer Shawn that no one else did was his boring reliability and predictability. Trustworthiness. Now he's shown that he can fail on these counts as well. If Cory can't be counted on and can't be trusted, what good is he? Doesn't Shawn deserve better than that?

Grimly, Cory puts his face to the oval window, feels its coolness against his hot skin. Everything had been going so well, and somehow he's managed to screw up every last bit of it. As he watches the light blinking on the far tip of the airplane's wing, he begins composing what he is going to say, how to phrase it to minimize the damage. Maybe Shawn does deserve better than Cory. The least Cory can do is try to make this realization as painless as possible for him.

Cory closes his eyes and despises himself to a degree he hadn't even realized was possible.

* * *

Sadie insisted, to Shawn and Anna's mutual discomfort, that she wanted to sleep in the big bed with both of her parents. They gave in because there was no way they were not going to give in to anything Sadie asked for tonight. But now that she's sound asleep between them and they're both still awake and keyed-up from the terror of the evening's events, it's more than a little bit awkward.

"I don't want her to get the wrong idea about this," Anna whispers.

"I know," Shawn replies, "We'll have to make sure she's straightened out about it in the morning. Can't let her think she's Parent-Trapped us."

Anna exhales a deep sigh and lays back. It's clear she's not any closer to being able to fall asleep yet than Shawn is. "Where's your boyfriend, anyway?" she asks.

"At a work conference."

"Is he...is he a good person? I mean, for Sadie to be around? She talks about him a lot and it makes me nervous...I don't even know him."

Shawn smiles in the dark at the idea that anyone would be worried about their kid spending time with Cory. "Cory's the best person I've ever known. Squeaky-clean and responsible. He's never done a damn thing wrong in his entire life. I tell you, none of this tonight would've happened if he was here. He'd have had her to the doctor at the first breath that didn't sound right. He was, like, born to be good parent."

Anna is quiet for a few minutes. Then she says softly, "We don't deserve her."

"I know." Shawn says. He thinks again about what he can remember of his time being with Anna all those years back, how their self-destructive tendencies seemed to bring them together. If ever there was a union of two very unhealthy people, it was theirs. It scares him to think about how he might have reacted (or, worse, not reacted) had he known back then that Anna had gotten pregnant. He's also wondered how long it took Anna to clean up her act once she found out, how much of Anna's bad habits and lifestyle Sadie had been exposed to. He's never felt right asking, though. Partially this is because his and Anna's current relationship has been so tense, but it's also because Shawn almost doesn't want to know.

As if Anna has been reading his mind, she starts telling him now about that time in quiet, halting sentences. She'd found out she was pregnant by random chance. She'd gone in for a drug test for a new job-she'd stayed clean for a week in anticipation of the hiring requirement-and when the lab results came back, it was noted in the "additional comments" box almost off-hand.

"I'll never forget that moment," Anna whispers, the wonder still evident in her voice, "It changed my entire life."

She'd been planning to go out and party that night in celebration of a clean drug test getting her into a better paying job. She almost certainly would've gotten coked up and trashed...Instead she took the train out to her mother's house in New Jersey, told her everything. She never took the job or moved back to the city. She stayed in Jersey and entered rehab, started life over as someone completely different, all because of a couple of words on a lab work form.

"I'm making it sound so much easier than it was," she muses, "But it all happened so fast. It  _had_  to happen fast...Sadie was the best thing that ever happened to me. She saved my life."

Shawn is quiet as he considers all this. He wonders if, had he known at the time, Sadie might've saved his life too. But there's no way to know and, if he's bitterly truthful about it, he thinks probably not. It very well might have even had the opposite effect. Finding that out at the point in his life...it's not so far-fetched to believe that Shawn might've decided that was a good reason to walk off the Brooklyn Bridge, thinking he was saving another person from the mess that was his life then.

"I tried to tell you once," she says, startling him. "When Sadie was a baby, I had to go into the city to pick up some stuff for the job I had back then. I went up to where you and Tom had been living. You were still there, but you were pretty...out of it at that point. Do you remember that day?"

Shawn is sitting up on his elbows now, alert to this new information, desperately racking his memory. "No," he has to admit.

"You were leaving on an assignment the next day, you said. Maybe Bangkok or Beijing, or something? I don't remember now. But you were in such bad shape, it scared me. I got out of there really quickly."

Shawn has a general sense of the time period she must be talking about, but he has no memory of seeing Anna then, or talking to her. God, that's terrible.

"To be honest," Anna continues, "It sounds awful, but I thought you'd be dead soon anyway. So, I told myself it was okay I didn't tell you. And I didn't want you anywhere near her after that."

Shawn takes his time putting his words together before he responds. "I'm sorry you saw me like that then. I'm sorry that's who I was. But you have to trust that I'm not that person anymore."

"I don't have much choice, do I?"

"No."

"Then I guess I'll have to try."

And Shawn uses the same phrase Anna had earlier, sounding as much like a civil adult as he can manage. "I appreciate that."

* * *

It's almost eight a.m. when Cory finally makes it back to the apartment. He's had two airplane flights, one layover, and two cab rides, hasn't slept, is wildly hungover, and has spent the last ten hours mentally drafting apology after apology to everybody in his life he has let down through his own stupidity and selfishness. He is ready to crawl into bed with his Shawn, maybe for the last time ever, and at least soak up a few hours of comfort before everything will officially have to go to hell.

In the doorway of their bedroom, though, Cory stops. There are three people in his bed: Shawn to the left, Sadie in the middle, and a woman Cory doesn't recognize but surmises must be Anna to the right. As if it had been planned for maximum symbolic impact, Shawn and Anna are both sleeping in a similarly curved position so that together they form a cartoon heart shape around their daughter. A more painful image could not be engineered for Cory to see right now, at his most vulnerable and self-loathing.

He stands there and continues to stare. They look for all the world like the most perfect happy little family and, though some tiny bit of logic in his brain tells Cory they are anything but, the sight cuts through him viciously.

"Ah, screw it all," Cory mutters and finally turns away.

He stumbles back to the living room, too exhausted to go anywhere else and, really, where the hell else does he even have to go to right now? He kicks off his shoes and crawls onto the sofa. He buries his face in the cushion and prepares himself for a great pitiful sob, equal parts furious with himself and sorry for himself. He falls asleep, though, before he even makes it that far. And when he finally dreams, he dreams of everybody being mad at him, accusing him of countless crimes. Dream Cory can't find the ability to speak a single word in his own defense.

"Cory!"

Cory bolts awake as Sadie leaps on top of him, pleased to have discovered him sleeping on the sofa.

"Hi," he replies weakly as she squeezes him in a bear hug of a greeting and takes a seat atop his chest.

"I went to the hospital!" She announces proudly. "We rode in an ambulance!"

Cory looks to where Shawn is standing across the room for confirmation that Sadie is possibly confusing something she saw on TV with reality, but the fact that Shawn looks like a walking corpse this morning tells Cory this is most definitely not the case. That would explain Anna's presence, he supposes. But did they go to the hospital because of something that happened to Sadie or to Shawn? As Cory's stomach seizes up uncomfortably at the thought of either of these scenarios, he decides he can live with not knowing the answer just yet.

"Sadie, sweetie, get off him please," Anna says nonchalantly as she passes through the room on her way to the kitchen, "Come have your breakfast."

Cory looks again to Shawn for some explanation, but he just shakes his head and indicates that Cory should join them for breakfast. There they end up having what is one of the the most awkward meals Cory can remember. Anna and Shawn, while civil to each other, don't really interact, each talking only to Sadie. It occurs to Cory that perhaps they slept together last night, which gives him the brief (and ridiculous) hope that maybe this could cancel out Cory's own transgression. He quickly decides, however, that this is quite unlikely to have happened; there is nothing sexual about their tension. They strike him as more exhausted and terrified than anything else.

All three of the adults pick over their breakfasts with disinterest, though Sadie's abundant cheer easily fills the enthusiasm vacuum. As she eats her eggs, she babbles happily about her dreams, her fish tank, and a field trip they're taking at school this week. Cory, for his part, enjoys the distraction. It makes the conversation he's going to inevitably have to have with Shawn feel much farther off. He'll take listening to Sadie over having potentially relationship-ending conversations any day.

Feeling like a man on death row, Cory takes the opportunity to admire Shawn one last time before Shawn starts to hate him. He looks like hell, actually. There are dark circles under his eyes, a couple days worth of scruff on his face, nose red and raw from what looks to be a cold. This last detail immediately sends Cory into caretaker mode and it takes everything in his power not to insist Shawn replace his coffee with orange juice and then head right back to bed. As Cory holds his tongue, he feels depressed anew. Who's going to take care of Shawn when he sends Cory away?

Then he watches the way Shawn is watching Sadie so intently, and Cory thinks about the scene he witnessed in the bedroom this morning, and he realizes that Shawn would be just fine without him. Shawn has an entire life that doesn't involve Cory. What Cory brings to the table suddenly feels like very little. But if Shawn leaves Cory, then Cory has truly lost everything. As Cory pushes his eggs around his plate, he notes that this thought is just as frightening around the sunny breakfast table as it was last night in a half-empty airplane cabin.

Later, as Anna gets Sadie's things together and they prepare to leave, Sadie to turns to Shawn and asks, "Are you coming home too?"

There is an uncomfortable beat, then Shawn says, "No. This is my home."

"Okay," Sadie replies easily, "I love you!"

And Shawn lifts her up into a very tight, full-body hug, finally revealing all the emotion he's been so carefully keeping in check this morning. "I love you so much," he says, squeezing her hard. Cory feels a lump in his throat, watching this scene.

After Anna and Sadie have gone, Shawn turns to Cory and collapses against him. "Oh, my god," he murmurs, "Oh, my god, Cor. I'm so glad you're home."

Cory leads Shawn over to the sofa and they both sit down. Immediately, Shawn shifts so that he is laying with his head in Cory's lap. He closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. As Shawn begins recounting the events of the previous day, Cory runs his hands through Shawn's hair, listening in horror, then amazement. Everything that happened back in Seattle is temporarily pushed to the far reaches of Cory's consciousness, as he loses himself in Shawn's story, feeling his terror and anxiety vicariously.

Then Shawn stops abruptly and sits up. "I'm sorry," he says, scooting away and waving his hand dismissively, "I know you don't want to hear about all of this. Everything turned out okay. It's all...it's all okay now. Happy ending."

Cory just stares at him.

"What?" Shawn asks.

"What do you mean, I don't want to hear about this? Of course I want to hear about it. Sadie almost died. Jesus, Shawnie."

"I know, I know," Shawn says, looking away and pushing his hair out of his face, "I just...I don't want to..." Shawn trails off, then turns back to him. "Hey. I haven't even asked why you're home so early. Did something happen?"

Cory's heart immediately starts to race and he finds that he can't speak. He's been preparing for this conversation all night and now that it's happening, his brain has stopped functioning. Then, to Cory's surprise, Shawn's expression changes completely, all the tight weariness and tension dropping off it, replaced with that beautiful grin.

"You know what?" Shawn says, "Forget it. Whatever it is, it can wait."

Then he kisses Cory deeply, holding the sides of his face so tightly between his hands that it's painful. "I really need a fuck," Shawn whispers huskily, "I really," he kisses him again, "really need you."

"Sure," Cory mumbles, half wondering if this is some miraculous Get Out of Jail Free card that has just landed in his lap.

But then Shawn launches onto him again and there's something about the desperate, aggressive way that he is kissing and pressing Cory's body back into the sofa that reminds him of Tom last night. Cory chokes and shoves Shawn off.

The hurt on Shawn's face is so awful, Cory has to look away.

"What's the matter, Babe?" Shawn asks.

Cory cringes at the endearment. This is going to be even harder than he thought. "Listen," he says, "There's something I need to tell you."


	11. Ode to Joy

 

Shawn holds his breath and waits as Cory struggles to find the words to say what Shawn just knows he is going to say. This is it. This is where it ends. Shawn's heart feels like a hermit crab retreating into its shell as he prepares himself for the blow.

Cory isn't even looking at him, the coward. The least he could do is have the balls to look Shawn in the face as he destroys him.

"I...I kissed Tom last night," Cory says finally, his voice wavering.

This seems like an odd entry point into the topic, Shawn thinks, but he waits for more. Of course there's going to be more; Cory just has to get to it.

After a moment of hesitation, Cory continues in a rushed stream of words. "I mean, he kissed me. He, you know, he did it first. But I...I participated too. I kissed him back, Shawn. I let it go on for far too long before I stopped it. I should've stopped it the second it started happening, I know. I don't know what's wrong with me...I mean, I do. I...I liked it. It was flattering and he was a good kisser, but...that doesn't mean anything. Shawnie, I swear to god it doesn't mean anything. I'm so sorry. I wish it didn't happen, but it did, and I feel so bad. I'm so sorry, Shawnie, I'm so sorry."

Shawn waits for Cory to go on. When Cory doesn't say anything more, just continues to sit there staring into the rug, looking for all the world like he's about to keel over, Shawn tries to coax him to continue. "So...what else?"

"Huh?"

"Get to the rest of it." Shawn closes his eyes and puts a hand to his temple, bracing for the worst.

"What do you mean? That's what happened."

Shawn opens one eye to peer over at him. "That's it?"

Cory finally lifts his head and looks at him. "Well, yeah."

"You didn't even sleep with him?"

"What? Of course not."

"Blow him? Nothing?"

"No!"

Shawn can't quite process this information. Then relief floods over him in cold chills all over his skin. He starts to laugh.

Cory's staring at him now.

Shawn's laughing so hard there are tears in his eyes. He grabs Cory's face and kisses him, laughing through it. Cory shakes him off roughly.

"Why are you laughing?"

"I thought you were leaving me!"

Cory furrows his brow and then repeats, as if Shawn has missed it, "I kissed Tom."

Shawn dismisses that with a wave of his hand. "Eh, I thought you guys were fucking by now for sure..."

"What? How long have you been thinking  _that_?"

"I dunno. A few weeks." The thought now seems absurd to Shawn. In half a second, the idea of Cory leaving him for Tom has gone from a dreadful certainty to a joke. Shawn's heart feels lighter than it has in months.

But Cory's tone is not light at all. "You thought that all this time and you never said anything?"

"I figured you were either gonna get it out of your system or you were gonna leave me," Shawn shrugs. Then he grins and shakes his head in amazement. "God, I'm so glad you're not leaving. I thought for sure you'd-"

"What the hell is the matter with you?"

Shawn stops smiling then and looks at him. He doesn't know that he's ever seen Cory look so angry. "I don't know," Shawn says uncertainly, "What's wrong with me now?"

"If you thought I was cheating on you, why would you just let that happen?"

"I don't know," Shawn says again, his enthusiasm fading as it becomes clear that Cory's genuinely mad at him. "I guess I figured if you wanted to leave me for him, there wasn't anything I could do about it."

Saying this out loud, it sounds lame to Shawn. He's embarrassed to suddenly recognize his own passivity. Why the fuck didn't he have any instinct to fight to keep the person he loves?

"That sounds really bad, doesn't it?" He says, but Cory ignores him.

"Do I mean that little to you?"

"No, no, it's not like that at all," Shawn says and puts his hand on Cory's arm, but Cory shakes him off and stands up. He stalks to the front hall and Shawn races behind him. He watches, stomach turning over, as Cory yanks his coat from the closet and starts buttoning it up.

"You going?" Shawn asks. It seems now like his relief was for nothing; Cory's leaving him anyway.

Cory pauses, then starts unbuttoning all the buttons he just did up and throws his coat back in the closet. "No," he says, pushing past Shawn and heading back into the living room. "I'm staying right here and we're gonna have this out."

Shawn takes a second to close his eyes and thank God or whoever before he follows him and sits down on the sofa again, waiting obediently for Cory to blow up at him. Cory fumes for a few moments, gathering up all his anger.  _This is not going to be good_.

Eventually, Cory speaks. "I threw away everything-my entire life, for you. And, what? This is just another relationship to you? Some glorified two-weeker?"

"You know that isn't true."

"How do I know? You never tell me anything, Shawn. But I  _do_  know, I  _do_  know there's something really wrong if you think I'm screwing around with another guy and you don't even care enough to say Boo about it."

Shawn looks at him standing there, furious and expecting some kind of answer, but he doesn't know what to say. Cory's absolutely right. Something's very wrong. Shawn is irrevocably fucked-up.

His continued silence seems to drive Cory more livid still. "Am I that boring? Am I just...disposable? What's the matter with me that you don't care at all what I do or who I'm with?"

"Nothing's the matter with you," Shawn says, sinking deeper into the sofa and wishing he could just melt away into it, "It's me. I'm really fucked up, Cor."

Cory folds his arms over his chest and waits. Shawn is not going to get away with just leaving it at 'I'm really fucked up,' which is too often his default explanation for everything. So Shawn takes a deep breath and thinks through what he wants to say. He has always operated so much more on instinct than on logic that it's difficult to translate into words the feelings that drive his actions, that make him behave in ways which feel perfectly sensible to Shawn but appear ludicrous to somebody as even-keeled as Cory.

"First of all, I love you." Shawn says, "I never loved anybody else like I love you. Never will. I know that. And I know you love me too." He looks at Cory carefully as he says this, to make sure that he knows it's true. Then he continues reluctantly, "But I also know that everybody who ever loved me, or said they loved me, or was supposed to even pretend that they loved me, they all left. Everybody eventually goes somewhere else to someplace better. With someone better. I get left behind, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I guess I thought, you know, why would anything I do now make a difference when nothing I ever did before changed anything?"

Cory takes this in, then sighs deeply. "How much more do you need from me to trust that I love you, and that I'm not going anywhere?"

Shawn smiles bitterly. He is such a walking whirlpool of need, sucking up everything everyone has to give and more. And what the hell does he ever give back? Just more need and insecurity. Always more need and insecurity.

"I trust that you love me," Shawn says, being careful to respond as honestly as possible, "I don't know if I'm capable of trusting that you're not going to leave me. I don't know how to believe that that's not some inevitability that I'm powerless to stop."

Cory sits down on the coffee table, facing him. The fury has disappeared from his expression, but the frustration and hurt is still there. "I don't know how to fix that," he says.

"I know." He wishes that Cory didn't always feel like he had to fix everything. Shawn also wishes that he he could stop being the a person who always needs fixing. Why can't Shawn just grow up already and be like a normal person? Why does he have to make everybody's lives so much harder? "I'm sorry," he says.

Cory picks up Shawn's hand and starts stroking it absently, forgiving Shawn for his flaws without having to say so. "I still don't understand," he says, "Why you didn't even say anything if you thought that was really happening. Why didn't you at least say, 'Please don't do this'?"

Shawn gazes over Cory, taking in the familiar shape of his ears, his halo of slightly overgrown curls, the Mr. Potatohead nose that Shawn loves so much. Then he sighs. "I guess part of it was because I still think you deserve someone better than me. So I thought I should let you go be happy. I spent my whole life trying to make you happy, and it never mattered if what made you happy is what made me happy, I went with it. Twenty-something years...that's a hard habit to break. I didn't want to make you feel bad for wanting something better."

Cory shakes his head in frustration. "This is all so stupid. I hate that you think that's what love is supposed to look like. It kills me. And...and, Jesus, why would you ever think  _Tom_  was better than you?"

Shawn bristles a little at having to talk about Tom now, finding that he does indeed have a little flame of jealousy inside him when he thinks about that asshole touching Cory. "You know," Shawn says weakly, "He's like you...All-American Mr. 4H. He's smart and good-looking and really together. He's everything you want-he's tall and he's got muscles and all that...He's not skinny and trashy and fucked-up. All  _I've_  got is hair."

"I love your hair," Cory murmurs, almost as if it's a reflex just at the mere mention of Shawn's hair. Then he gets back on point and says, "I don't care if he's tall and got muscles. That doesn't matter to me."

"Bullshit. You  _never_  stop going on about it. You're obsessed with him and all those other guys at the gym, all the guys who look like that. What am I supposed to think about that? I'm never gonna look like them. I can't compete with that if that's what you want. It seems really important to you."

Cory looks at him in shock for a moment, then he throws his head back and shakes it in disbelief. "No, no, no," he says. He picks up both Shawn's hands now and starts rubbing them as he speaks. "Shawnie, I don't want you to look like that. I love the way you look. Sure, I'd like you to be a bit healthier, I worry aboutcha, but I'd never trade you in a million years for one of those... _Toms_."

"Then why-"

"I thought that's what  _you_  liked. You know, 'cause you were with Tom before. And I sure as heck can't compete with that either. You have so many people trying to get with you all the time I just...It gets a little hard not to have a complex about it."

Shawn lets this information sink in. He's been so used to people hitting on him since he was a young teen that he doesn't even really notice it anymore. He remembers, though, how that used to drive Cory bananas with insecurity even when they were just friends. It strikes Shawn that he's been selfish not to even consider that this might be a much bigger deal to Cory now that they're actually together.

"You know," he tells Cory, "That whole gym thing is new. Tom didn't look like that when he and I were together. I mean, part of the reason I liked him was because he reminded me of you."

"I know. I saw the pictures."

"What pictures?"

"And the video."

"What video?"

Cory has an odd expression on his face now. He climbs back onto the couch and squeezes up tight against Shawn, rests his head on his shoulder and takes Shawn's hands in his again. Then, awkwardly, he recounts the day he went to Tom's apartment, how he snooped through Tom's old photo and video files, saw the entire history of Shawn and Tom's relationship documented in photos, saw Tom and Shawn fucking in low-res video.

Shawn's stomach turns over as Cory describes it all and he feels a queer mixture of violated and ashamed. It's like Cory time-traveled back to one of the worst points in Shawn's life and gawked at everything Shawn never wanted him to see.

"Do you have any idea how wrong it was for you to do that?" Shawn asks him when it seems that Cory's come to the end of his tale.

"I do."

"You didn't just violate Tom's privacy, you know."

"I know. I wish I never saw any of it. I'm sorry."

Shawn is quiet, thinking about how, no matter what he does he can never seem to get away from his past. Then he asks, "Does it change how you feel about me?"

"I guess I understand better why you don't like talking about that part of your life."

"No shit."

And then maybe it's that this last story is just one heavy conversation too far, but Shawn feels every bit of the cold he's been ignoring for the past 48 hours. He sniffles and gives an involuntary shudder and that seems to snap Cory into mother mode. He hustles Shawn back to bed, gets him medicine and closes the blinds.

"Sleep, darling," he says and he tucks the covers tighter around him. It's always ridiculous when Cory calls him 'darling.' Still, it feels nice to be babied a little and the siren song of his pillow is calling to Shawn. It feels like he hasn't slept in days. Between Sadie, Anna, and now Cory, this weekend has put him through an emotional laundry wringer. Just as he's drifting blissfully to sleep, though, Cory calls to him from the doorway.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"If you ever get to thinking again that I'm cheating on you or gonna leave you for somebody else, do me a favor and pipe up, huh? Maybe say something like 'Cory, dear, don't leave me.' It'd do wonders for my ego."

Shawn rolls over and looks at him standing there. "Cory, dear," he says, "Don't leave me." The he rolls back over and mumbles into his pillow. "You're such a big, muscle-y, manly man. I've never liked fuckin' anybody as much as I like fuckin' you."

"Ooh, careful," Cory says, "You'll give me a big head."

Shawn's smiling as he falls asleep.

* * *

While Shawn sleeps, Cory busies himself cleaning up the breakfast dishes and the debris of a weekend during which both Shawn and Sadie were leaving piles of used Kleenex and juice boxes and soup bowls on every available surface. Then he unpacks his suitcase, sorts his laundry and finally, when he can find no other task to distract him, strips off the clothes he's been wearing since the conference the previous day, and crawls into bed.

Although he's exhausted, Cory's also wound-up from everything that has happened and the weight of their fight. It's going to be a while before he'll be able to sleep. So he lies here and thinks about how easily everything just went to hell in their relationship these past couple months and it scares him. He's always prided himself on taking care of the people he loves, but it's unnerving how a few thoughtless actions can cause so much damage. He vows to be better. About everything. And somehow, somehow, he's going to win Shawn's full and unqualified trust. He's not sure how he's going to do it, but Cory's just simply not going to be able to rest in his eternal grave until this is accomplished. That's all there is to it.

Cory watches Shawn sleep for a while, taking reassurance in the gentle movement of his chest. He's looking better lately, getting filled back in around the ribs and losing that awful pile of bones look that makes Cory's heart hurt. Cory makes a mental note to be sure Shawn keeps doing whatever it is that's working, the shakes, the swimming, whatever.

The thought of the swimming, though, makes Cory think about the gym, which reminds him afresh just how badly the whole Tom thing has screwed up his life. They're going to have to find a new gym to go to, is Cory's initial thought, but that quickly piggybacks onto the far more important thought that Cory's going to have to find a new job, probably in a new field, with no work references for the past almost-year, and no sense at all of where to begin. All of this makes him feel absolutely hopeless. Cory likes having a clear path of what he is supposed to do at any given time, where he is supposed to go, what is supposed to happen. He has none of that right now. Instead he's back to being directionless, just as he was before Shawn got him the job with Tom. This time it's worse, though, because Cory's not walking away from a career he never liked much anyway; he's walking away from something he really loved, something that felt blessedly  _right_  after years of jobs that never felt like they fit at all. Between being with Shawn and having a job that he loved, it had seemed for a few months here like everything in Cory's life was finally going the way it should. And now he's screwed all that up.

He sighs and focuses back on Shawn, vulnerable and sublime in his sleep. At least Cory's screw-up hasn't completely torpedoed everything. If Cory only got to hold onto one element of his happiness-Shawn or the job-he's glad he got the right one. It seems selfish to want even more than that.

Perhaps feeling the pressure of Cory's gaze on him, Shawn wakes up and squints at him. "Hey, beautiful," he says, his voice still croaky with sleep, "What's up?

"I quit my job," Cory says, "I forgot to tell you that part."

"Okay."

"Okay? It's not great, Shawn. I don't know what I'm gonna do now."

"You're gonna embark on a new and exciting career as a stay-at-home sex slave."

Cory laughs despite himself. Shawn takes this as an opening and gets to his knees, crawls on top of him. He stares him down for a moment, eyes deadly serious. It occurs to Cory that Shawn looks much older up close; his smile keeps him looking younger at a superficial distance, but at the distance only Cory is privileged, you can see all the tiny flaws and marks he has accumulated. There's always something a bit reassuring about this; his boy is tougher than he looks.

Cory catches a glimpse of mischievousness in Shawn's eyes for just a second before Shawn regains his carefully composed solemnity. "Cory?"

"Yeah, babe?" Cory replies, using Shawn's endearment of choice in an attempt to throw him off his serious act.

It doesn't appear to have that effect, though. Shawn holds steady. He puts his face right up to Cory's and puts on a low, gravely voice, "I don't want you fucking or kissing or so much as making googly eyes at another guy again. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"And don't think I've forgiven you. You're gonna have to do a lot to make up for your little Seattle escapade."

"Pretty sure I saw you in our bed with your ex-girlfriend this morning."

Shawn rolls his eyes. "Don't even joke about that." Then he snaps back into character and begins kissing Cory, savagely.

Cory closes his eyes, enjoying this, and puts his hand on Shawn's cock, but Shawn removes it, presses Cory's hand back into the mattress. "I'll tell you what to do," Shawn instructs him.

Cory plays along. He tries to lay limp as Shawn continues kissing him and pressing his body down against him, but Cory's hands keep finding themselves reaching for Shawn, trying to grab him around the sides or to stroke his funny little patch of chest hair. All he wants to do today is touch him. But each time, Shawn thrusts Cory's hands back down.

Cory's hard as a rock and Shawn rubs their cocks against each other, teasing him as his licks and bites Cory's ear. Cory squirms at the tickling near his neck and Shawn slaps him. Cory looks at him surprise and Shawn says, "You hold still, jack-ass."

Cory laughs at him and Shawn slaps him again and glares at him with a look that gives Cory chills. He knows Shawn's in character, but it scares him a little bit. It's also turning him on.

Shawn works his way down Cory's body, biting and grabbing and handling him roughly. He stakes his territory out across his skin, making Cory squirm then forcing him back down into a completely vulnerable position each time. Cory pants and struggles to be still as Shawn brands his property and smacks him back into line as needed. Then he rolls Cory onto his back and holds his wrists together painfully as he dry humps him from behind, his stiff dick rubbing alongside the back of Cory's hip, feeling colossal. He gnaws on Cory's shoulders as he does this, and Cory bites into the pillows to keep from crying out.

"All right," Shawn snarls and slaps Cory's ass, "Enough of that crap." He climbs off of Cory and commands, "Get the lube."

Cory does as his is told, fetching the bottle from the nightstand drawer and handing it to Shawn. He takes it in one hand and shoves Cory up against the wall with the other. He presses Cory's face into the old, pre-war plaster and growls in his ear, "Don't even fucking think of moving."

Cory has only a second or two to be amused by this before Shawn is lubed up and entering him. "Oh, god," Cory cries, "Oh, god, that's good."

"Shut up," Shawn says and thrusts again, slamming Cory hard into the wall.

"God, I love you."

"Fuck you." Shawn thrusts again and Cory is just all bodiless sensation, not even noticing as his jaw connects with the wall, overcome by how good it feels to have Shawn in him again.

"You're mine," Shawn says, thrusting again. "Mine," he thrusts again, "Mine. You hear me, shithead?"

"Yeah," Cory gasps, "Yeah."

"I'm not sharing you with fucking anyone anymore." Shawn thrusts again and Cory tastes blood in his mouth but doesn't care.

"You belong," Shawn thrusts again, his fingers digging deep and hard into the skin on the back of Cory's shoulder, "to me."

Then Shawn comes and Cory comes too and melts into the wall, Shawn collapsing against him. They pant for a few moments, sweaty and satiated, their bodies like one mass of skin and wobbly muscle and cum. Eventually, Shawn stands back on dizzy feet and leads Cory to the bed with him. They fall onto the mattress side by side and Cory's eyes loll over the ceiling, still seeing stars and wonderful shapeless things. Later, he'll be concerned that they made a mess, that he's all sticky and stinks to high heaven with sweat and cum, but these facts don't even register right now. All he knows is that he feels fantastic.

He can't really think of anything until Shawn's leaning over him, looking concerned. Shawn puts his thumb to Cory's lip and Cory realizes he's bleeding. He either bit his lip or smashed it into the wall, he's not sure. It stings a little now that he notices it.

"Aw," Shawn says softly and sucks the blood off his thumb, "I'm sorry."

Cory runs his hand across his own mouth and then wipes the blood across Shawn's cheek like Indian war paint. Shawn smiles in response. When he smiles, he is just about the most handsome guy Cory's ever seen.

"You're so good-lookin'," Cory says.

"Fuck you," Shawn laughs, and lays back down beside him.

Cory sighs, still feeling tingling in his toes and in his belly and his fingertips. "If I'm ever dumb enough to leave you, Shawnie, you have my full permission to kill me."

Shawn doesn't say anything back to that, just laces his fingers between Cory's and holds his hand until they both pass out in lazy, satisfied bliss.

* * *

It's not clear what time it is when Cory wakes up from what feels like a 1,000-year-long nap. The clock reads 3:26 and he squints at it, trying to remember if the dot beside the numbers indicates a.m. or p.m. He decides it's a.m. He rubs his eyes then turns on the lamp. Directly across from him he is greeted by the sight of what they did to the wall. The plaster is cracked-it's always cracking, but this pretty bad-and there's blood and dried semen smeared all over. He tells himself that they'll need to take care of this before Cecilia arrives to clean this week. He's pretty sure she already suspects they're kinky and weird, but he doesn't want to give her any evidence to confirm this. Or more evidence, anyway.

He pulls on pajama pants and an undershirt, realizing after that it's Shawn's undershirt and skintight on him. He's too lazy to bother switching it for one of his own, though, and heads off to figure out where Shawn is and to find something to eat. His stomach is growling.

Cory finds Shawn in the dining room, frowning over some booklets, pen poised over a legal pad. There are papers and pamphlets strewn across the table. Shawn acknowledges him with a nod and bites down on his pen as he continues to read the page he has open. He accepts a kiss on the cheek as Cory passes him on his way into the kitchen.

Cory fixes himself a bowl of cereal, grabs a banana for Shawn, and returns to the dining room. He sits down, passes the banana to Shawn and shovels in two quick mouthfuls of cereal.

Shawn sets the banana aside. "I already ate."

"There's always room for a banana."

"Fine." Shawn sits back in his chair and peels the banana. As he eats it, he continues reading one of the booklets, then glances up at Cory. He swallows a bite and asks, "That my shirt?"

"Uh-huh," Cory nods. Then he notices that the undershirt Shawn has on is loose and hanging low on his shoulders. "That mine?"

Shawn looks down at himself in surprise. "Yeah, I think it is."

"Should we trade?"

Shawn considers this, continuing to appraise Cory in his too-small shirt, then shakes his head and pops the end of the banana in his mouth. "Nah," he says around it, "I like it when you look like you're going cruising."

Shawn is about to lay the empty banana peel down directly on the table, but Cory snatches it away before he does. Cory takes it in the kitchen and throws it out properly. When he returns, he resumes eating his cereal and asks, "How long have you been up?"

"I dunno. Couple hours." Shawn's attention has returned to the stacks of pamphlets and booklets.

Cory cranes his neck, trying to read them upside-down. They seem to be something to do with schools. There's pictures of smiling children in uniforms on all the covers. "What's all this?"

"Nothing," Shawn replies, "Don't worry about it."

Cory continues reading the titles of the brochures with his head turned to the side. He reaches over to pick one up but Shawn stops him.

"Really, don't worry about it."

Cory retracts his hand and watches quietly as Shawn flips through one of the booklets to a page he's marked with a Post-It and makes note of something on the legal pad. He looks stressed.

"Anna's really pumping you to pay for a fancier school, huh?"

"No," Shawn says, grabbing a different brochure and paging through it with a deep furrow in his brow, "No, it's my idea..."

Cory's surprised by this and starts to ask him about it, but Shawn cuts him off before he can speak. "Listen, Cor, I gotta concentrate, okay? There's a lot of information here and you know thinking's not my strong suit."

"Okay," Cory says, bristling at Shawn's typical 'I'm stupid' statement, but deciding it's not worth it to say anything when Shawn's already obviously irritated. They've only just avoided a disastrous fight this morning; no need to push it.

Cory carries his bowl into the kitchen, washes it out and deposits it in the dishwasher. Then he cleans up the mess left behind from Shawn's meal earlier. It looks like he made macaroni and cheese; half of it is still in the pot, hardened like lava. As Cory scrapes the pot clean under hot water, he muses that one upside of his new employment status is that he can start doing all the cooking and make sure Shawn eats something that doesn't come out of a box or a can.

As he finishes cleaning the pot and lays it out to dry, Cory spies two empty nutritional shake cans on the breakfast bar. He drops them in the recycle bin and takes a moment to appreciate that Shawn  _is_  trying to be better about stuff. As long as Shawn is trying, and not just letting himself sink into self-destructive spirals every time something goes wrong, it feels like they're going to be okay. Cory's impressed at how very much Shawn didn't fall apart this weekend, despite Sadie, Anna, and Cory all tossing him emotional hand grenades. He handled it all remarkably well. Sadie seems to bring out the best in him.

_And now he's out there struggling to do something about schooling for Sadie and you're in here, Matthews, avoiding the kid stuff like always._

Cory thinks about what Eric said about Cory already having the opportunity to be a parent right under his nose and avoiding it for stupid reasons. Shawn's trying to be better about things, trying to be a better person. Now's a great chance for Cory to put forth a little effort too. He snaps off the tap, dries his hands briskly on a dishtowel, and heads back out to the dining room, determined.

Shawn has a hand buried in his hair and is bent over one of the booklets. He looks up in annoyance as Cory sits down across from him.

"Tell me what this is all about," Cory says.

"Really, Cor, you don't have to-"

"I just want to know what you're working on."

Shawn looks at him warily, then sits back in his chair and sighs. "So Sadie's really smart, but her shitty school doesn't have the budget to put her in a gifted program, so I'm trying to convince Anna we should put her in private school. I went to visit a bunch of schools and they gave me a ton of information, and now I don't know how to make heads or tails of it all. I wanna make, like, a chart, or something to give to Anna to try and show her what our options are, but..." Shawn gestures helplessly over the spread of paperwork.

"Okay," Cory nods, being careful not to let on how impressed he is by the fact that Shawn actually cares about this and has put in so much legwork, "How about a spreadsheet?"

"Yeah," Shawn snorts, "Lemme just whip one up."

It takes Cory a second to realize that Shawn actually thinks this is a ludicrous suggestion. Between Cory's business degree and years spent working in the insurance industry, it hasn't occurred to him that not everybody dream-works their way through tables and spreadsheets in their sleep. "Just use Excel. It's not that hard."

"Yeah, well it is for me. Here," Shawn holds up the legal pad on which he's written a Pro/Con list for two of the schools and mostly scratched out a list for a third and says, "White trash spreadsheet."

"Let me help you, then."

Shawn flushes and takes the notepad back, lays his arm over it with obvious embarrassment. "No. No, Cory. Really. I know you don't...Don't worry about it. This isn't your problem."

"I'd like it to be."

Shawn looks up in surprise and Cory repeats more firmly, "Let me help."

Shawn holds his gaze and Cory can tell he's trying to decipher just how much Cory means by this statement. Cory doesn't correct or clarify further, just allows Shawn to take it for whatever he wants it to mean.

"All right," Shawn says finally, giving Cory a grateful smile, "Thanks."

They settle in among the papers and begin, at long last, working together.

* * *

Shawn is hollering in the deepest baritone he can manage, his voice echoing off the shower tiles, "Sing to joy and gladness now and ever more to freedom's song! Open up your heart's desire with love that's ever-lasting!"

Cory is grinning at him under the streaming water of the shower spigot and shaking his head. "I'll never forgive Angela for getting you hooked on all those classical records," he says.

Shawn ignores him and continues singing, pounding out an imaginary timpani on his chest, Tarzan-style, "Let this magic bring together," he drops his voice impossibly low here, "all who dwell upon the Earth..."

Cory rolls his eyes and begins rubbing shampoo into his curls.

Shawn continues, conducting with his hand now while doing his best impression of the deep choral singers, "All mankind shall be together and peace shall reign upon the Earth..."

He starts to carry on with the next verse, then can't keep it up anymore and starts laughing at himself.

"You're in a good mood, huh?" Cory remarks as he tilts his head back to rinse.

"Mmm," Shawn agrees, stealing a quick, soapy kiss before leaning back to better admire his boyfriend. One of the reasons he'd pushed for them to buy this apartment over some of the others they were looking at was because the shower was slightly oversized. Shawn loves hopping into the shower with Cory every chance he can. Sometimes they have shower sex, but most of the time Shawn just enjoys sharing that intimate space with him, watching Cory clean himself and be all casually naked and gorgeous.

Usually, Cory ends up kicking Shawn out so he can concentrate on getting his business done and getting where he needs to be in a reasonable amount of time, but today he uttered no complaint when Shawn hopped in after him. Today is magic. Today is just for them. They've made plans to have an actual date tonight, going out to dinner and maybe a movie, just spending time together again and winding down from the tension of the past couple days.

Shawn can't get over what a relief it is to have all that school stuff straightened out. He hadn't realized how much it was weighing on him, among the many other things that have been weighing on him lately. But then Cory had swooped in and, in less than two hours time, turned that stack of overwhelming information into a couple of simple charts that Shawn could finally make sense of and use to make his case to Anna. Cory's so much smarter than anyone gives him credit for and so very good at that kind of stuff.

Overcome with affection, Shawn leans in and nibbles at Cory's ear and Cory pushes him off. Shawn smiles and reluctantly reaches for his own shampoo.

As Shawn suds up his hair, he marvels at the way Cory had not only thrown himself into helping organize the information about the schools, but also the way he kept asking Shawn about different things related to Sadie. Then later he'd joined in when Shawn was video-chatting with Sadie, not finding an excuse to slip into one of the other rooms like he usually does when they chat. All of a sudden, Cory seems to want to be involved in Sadie's life in a way he never did before. Maybe it's not a conscious thing at all, maybe it's a fluke, but it makes Shawn giddy with happiness. He hadn't realized how much keeping his life with Sadie separate from his life with Cory had been depressing him. Being able to share that with Cory just feels wonderful. His two favorite people in the world...Shawn gets almost choked up by how much he loves them both.

"Was I the first guy you kissed?"

Shawn looks at Cory in surprise, disrupted from his thoughts. "Huh?"

"You know, that first time with you and me in my parents' garage. Was that your first kiss?"

Shawn snorts. "That was far from my first kiss."

"No, I mean your first kiss with a guy."

"Oh." Shawn thinks briefly about a couple of anonymous men at the bus station, about the man who lived downstairs from Jonathan Turner who sometimes bought Shawn gifts and exchanged them for kisses and a little groping...those uncomfortable years in high school when Shawn only fooled around with men in secret and kept the rendezvous so hidden in his mind that he barely remembers them himself now. But none of that, none of those older men, had been anything as innocent as Shawn's first kiss with a guy. That must have come before. Then he remembers who it was, and his ears start to burn a little. He turns away from Cory and becomes very focused on conditioning his hair.

"Was that  _your_  first kiss with a guy," Shawn asks in hopes of distracting Cory, "That time in the garage?"

"Of course it was."

"Aww. I'm touched, Cor. I like being your first."

"Didn't you know that?"

Shawn pushes Cory out of the way so he can get a more direct position under the shower head to rinse his hair. "Guess I probably thought so."

"So that wasn't your first time, though?"

Shawn continues rinsing his hair. His hair will be the most thoroughly-rinsed hair that ever was. "What does it matter?"

"It doesn't," Cory says, squeezing body wash into his hand and soaping up, "I just realized it was something I didn't know about you and was curious."

"Fair enough," Shawn says and accepts the bottle from Cory. As he begins soaping up as well, he asks, "So, was I everything you hoped I'd be as your first male kiss?"

"Why are you avoiding answering the question?"

"I'm not," Shawn lies, turning slightly so Cory can't see his face, "It's so not a big deal."

"Then who was it? Someone I know?"

"No one. Like I said, it's not a big deal."

"You're making it a big deal. Who was it?"

Shawn groans and closes his eyes. "Frankie. Okay. You happy?"

"Frankie who?"

Shawn opens his eyes and raises his eyebrow. Then understanding blooms on Cory's face. "Frankie Stecchino?!"

Cory looks both horrified and confused. Shawn resumes rinsing himself under the shower head.

"When did you guys even hang out?" Cory asks.

"He was the only other guy in the trailer park my own age who wasn't a total gearhead or stoner or a budding psychopath. I didn't spend my  _entire_  life at your house, you know."

"What the hell did you guys even talk about?"

Shawn glares at him. "Poetry." He's practically daring Cory to laugh.

Cory doesn't laugh, though. He just seems to be thinking about all of this as he takes his turn under the shower head to rinse. Shawn gets out of his way and takes a seat on the built-in bench at the end of the tub. He waits for Cory to ask him a dozen questions, but Cory doesn't.

"Herman's getting a Ph.D.," Shawn says.

"Really?"

Shawn nods. "Got a full ride to Penn State and he's just been going from there. Surprised Morgan didn't tell you."

"I guess I never asked. You guys still keep in touch?"

"Once in a while. Frankie's a corrections officer at the same pen where Uncle Mike's locked up. He still writes a little too. I sent him a manuscript of my first Cheaty book before it got published. He had some useful thoughts on it."

"Huh. That's interesting," Cory says.

Shawn shrugs, feeling a bit exposed. Then he hears something and pokes his head out of the shower. "Your phone's ringing," he tells Cory.

"Eh, whoever it is can wait."

Then Shawn pokes his head out again. "Now my phone's ringing. Somebody's trying to get a hold of you."

Cory shuts off the water, grabs a towel and dashes out. Shawn waits and shivers in the suddenly cool air. When Cory doesn't return, he wraps himself in a bathrobe and towels off his hair. He can hear Cory on the phone down the hall, but can't make out what he's saying. Cory's off the phone by the time Shawn emerges. He's sitting on the bed with his phone still in his hand, looking stunned.

"What's up?" Shawn asks, sitting down beside him.

"Nana Boo-Boo passed away."

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry, Cor." Shawn puts his arm over Cory's shoulder and Cory leans into him, still seeming a bit dazed.

"God," Shawn mutters, kissing the top of Cory's curls, "What a lousy couple of days."

Cory doesn't say anything in response to this. They sit in silence for a few minutes, both thinking what Shawn imagines to be completely different thoughts. And it's only when he feels the dampness against his chest that Shawn realizes Cory has begun to cry.


	12. Everything You Ever Wanted

Shawn emerges from the subway, carrying a container of extremely over-priced pudding against his chest like a Faberge egg. It had taken him two trains out of his way to get to the new all-pudding shop, and he'd had to elbow his way through hoards of Brooklyn hipsters, rolling his eyes all the while. Hopefully it'll be something that finally puts a smile on Cory's face, though. He's been down in the dumps since finding out about Nana Boo-Boo. Shawn supposes this is to be expected, but it also seems to him that Cory might be taking this to an extreme. Shawn still remembers how hard Cory took it when the lunch lady died in high school. If Cory handles change badly, he handles loss even worse. Still, as over-dramatic as he kinda thinks Cory's being, Shawn can't stand to see him moping around, looking so sad all the time.

As he makes his way into the lobby of their building and gets into the elevator, Shawn starts mentally preparing himself to be lectured. He'd told Cory he was just going out to get a haircut and this spur-of-the-moment side trip had obviously taken a lot longer than that. Cory's gonna be annoyed and stressed out. Topanga's probably already landed at JFK and they're all supposed to catch the 6 o'clock train to Philly together in about two hours. Pudding-even fancy, "artisan" hipster pudding-might not be enough to soothe him.

Shawn leans back and groans out loud in the empty elevator, trying to get his own annoyance out of his system before he gets up there. He is not in any way looking forward to seeing Topanga again, let alone spending two hours with her on a train and then the next two days with all three of them together with the entire Matthews clan. He's not even sure how that brilliant plan got formed. Topanga was supposed to be in New York anyway for some reason, and when she heard that Nana Boo-Boo had passed, she'd insisted she needed to rearrange her schedule so she could fit in attending the memorial. Then Cory had suggested she just come out to Philly with them and they all stay at his parents' house as if they were just one big happy family. It was the most fucked-up thing Shawn could imagine. And it was such a classic Cory and Topanga plan, plans which always seem designed for maximum complication and inconvenience for everyone else involved...it irritates Shawn on a gut level, reminding him of everything that was always so insanely annoying about Cory and Topanga. But Cory has been in such a shaky state the last 48 hours that Shawn has kept his mouth shut about it. He's just been silently dreading it and planning to get a lot of use out of his fake, every-thing-is-fine smile.

_Just gotta get through the next two days and everything'll be back to normal..._

Cory's already completely packed, of course, when Shawn lets himself into the apartment, and he's now going around the perimeter of each room unplugging appliances. Shawn can't remember if Cory had said they needed to do this to conserve electricity or to prevent fires, but it strikes him as a bit neurotic either way; they're only leaving town for the weekend. Again, though, Shawn says nothing. Instead he takes care to hang up his coat instead of tossing it over a chair like he normally would and follows Cory into the office to offer up his gift.

Shawn silently admires Cory's bent-over ass as he waits for him to finish unplugging the printer and turn around. When Cory does, though, his face falls in disappointment.

"You cut your hair."

"I said I was going to."

"Yeah, but...you cut it all off."

_Shit_. "Not all of it. I just...it's a normal haircut, Cor. Come on. I didn't want to show up at your parents' house with same stupid haircut I had at fourteen. It's embarrassing."

"I loved your hair."

And now Shawn feels genuinely guilty. "Does it look bad?"

"No," Cory sighs, "I don't think you could look bad with any haircut. I don't know. It's fine. I'm glad you shaved, I guess. You were starting to look like a hobo."

"Gee, thanks. Hey," Shawn holds up the container, "Brought you something."

Cory accepts the container curiously. "A quart of pudding?"

"Stupidly expensive artisan hipster pudding from this new pudding-only place that just opened in Williamsburg."

"Wow," Cory marvels, turning the container around in his hands. It's not the delighted response Shawn had been hoping for, but he can tell Cory's trying. "What flavor is it?"

"Chocolate."

"Just chocolate?"

"Yeah, but, supposedly amazing chocolate. Like, the best chocolate ever. The chocolate of millionaires."

That finally makes Cory smile. It fades quickly, though. "I don't have time to eat it. And it's probably not gonna last if I leave it in the fridge. Hipsters don't believe in preservatives, right?"

Shawn turns around and heads out of the room before Cory can see how poorly a job he's doing of keeping the annoyance off his face. "Eat it on the train," Shawn calls back over his shoulder, managing to keep his voice light, anyway.

He packs his bag quickly, trying not to over-think it. Cory's family and Topanga are gonna think whatever they want to think about him, and the perfect shirt and tie combination isn't going to change that. Besides, Cory's starting to breathe down his neck about being late to the station. He throws in a pair of dress shoes, zips the bag, dumps a weekend feeder in the fish tank and then they're gone.

In the cab, Cory reviews their itinerary out loud for the fortieth time. Shawn catches a partial reflection of himself in the overcast window and examines his new haircut. He's not even sure why he told the stylist to cut his hair short again. It hadn't been his intention when he went in. Now he understands, though, sure as he understands the nauseous feeling in his stomach. He did it to punish Cory in retaliation for setting up this whole stupid Topanga thing. So petty and childish.

_God, Hunter, are you ever gonna fucking grow up?_

"Hey, are you listening?"

Shawn glances over at Cory. Cory glares at him. "I just don't want you to end up on the wrong train, or something."

"Cory, how could I end up on the wrong train if I'm with you the whole time?"

Cory scowls and clearly doesn't have an answer for that. That's when Shawn finally notices that Cory is still carrying the container of pudding, apparently taking Shawn's sarcastic suggestion that he eat it on the train ride seriously. Shawn feels guilty all over again for being mean to him.

"Put the itinerary away, okay? Everything's gonna be fine." Shawn puts his arm around Cory's shoulders and silently tells himself the same thing.

* * *

They end up getting to the station with more time to kill than they expected. Topanga's not even there yet, Shawn's fidgeting, and it's driving Cory crazy. He finally asks Shawn to go buy them a couple of coffees for the train ride just to give him something to do. Cory feels bad about this. He knows Shawn's trying to be patient and supportive-he did spend most of yesterday helping Cory find an appropriate poem to read at Nana Boo-Boo's service-but Cory can't help but feel like Shawn just doesn't really get it. You'd think Shawn, who's lost more family members to death and incarceration and random happenstance, to understand better than anybody. In a weird way, though, Cory feels like this has all made Shawn take it a little too lightly. His idea of trying to make Cory feel better was to point out that Cory and Nana Boo-Boo weren't ever all that close, that Nana Boo-Boo was pretty old and in poor health anyway, and that Cory still has a boatload of family members. None of this makes Cory feel any better.

In a way, he knows that Shawn is right. Cory wasn't that close to his grandmother, and having her gone is not going to make a major difference in his day to day life. But just knowing that she is gone...Cory's lost too many things in his life recently, the things that give him a sense of structure and predictability. He's left feeling unmoored and vulnerable, as if anything could just change at any minute. Cory hates feeling like this, like he has no control over his life. Shawn doesn't get it because Shawn feels like that all the time and has learned to deal with it by just accepting it as simply the way things are. But Cory doesn't want to accept it as the way things are; he wants to stop it and put everything back together to the way things were.

Speaking of the way things were, here is Topanga now, approaching Cory with a great big smile on her face. She looks amazingly pretty. She's done something different with her hair-it looks good, though Cory can't quite put his finger on what the specific difference is. He feels a warm rush of familiarity as she approaches.

"Hey, stranger," she says as he stands up and gives her a hug. Cory lets it become a longer, more intimate hug than he originally intended, only letting go when Topanga sort of awkwardly disengages him. How do you hug the woman you were married to for nine years, though, and not fall into the same kind of hug you always gave her?

"I'm so sorry to hear about Nana Boo-Boo," Topanga tells him as she sits beside him and takes his hand in hers.

"Thanks," Cory says because he's yet to figure out what you say in response to condolences. It feels nice letting her hold his hand, though. Her hands are so much smaller and softer than Shawn's. He'd forgotten that.

"Thank you for letting me come with," she continues, "I know it's probably odd, but I feel like she was my grandmother too."

"My parents are looking forward to seeing you. Mom's really touched that you're gonna be there."

Topanga smiles and then asks in a carefully sympathetic tone, "Shawn's not coming?"

"What?" Cory looks over at her. "Of course he is."

"Oh, I just...where is he?"

"Getting coffee."

"Oh. Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed..." Topanga falters for a second, then regains her composure and puts on a bright smile, "I wish I'd gotten here before he left. I could use some coffee."

"You can have mine. I don't really want it."

"All right," she squeezes his hand, "Thanks. That's nice."

There's a strained pause where neither of them seems to know what to say and it is only interrupted when Shawn finally returns, carrying two cups of coffee.

"Hi," Shawn says and just stands there.

"Hey," Cory says and guiltily removes his hand from Topanga's. He takes one of the coffee cups from Shawn and hands it to Topanga.

Shawn continues standing there and just stares at him.

"Oh, I took your seat, didn't I?" Topanga says suddenly and starts to stand up.

"It's okay," Shawn says and sits down on a bench across from them. He gives them both a patronizing smile and takes longer than necessary to open the top of his coffee. He sips it and asks, "Have a good flight in?"

"I did, thanks." Topanga smiles. "I was expecting a delay, but it all went pretty smoothly. It's nice when that happens."

"Yup," Shawn says and takes another sip of coffee. His eyes focus on something beyond Cory and Topanga and he switches his attention to whatever that is instead of them.

Topanga sips her coffee.

Cory sighs and knots his hands together.

It's going to be the longest ninety minute train ride ever.

* * *

On the train itself, Cory is careful to find two bench seats facing each other and to sit beside Shawn instead of Topanga. Cory and Topanga make small talk about people they know back in California, but they run through the topic after only a couple minutes. Shawn and Topanga both start distracting themselves with stuff on their phones and, at a loss, Cory starts to eat his fancy pudding.

"You aren't planning to eat that whole container, are you?" Topanga asks incredulously, "Do you have any idea how much sugar is in that?"

"Hey," Shawn snaps, "Leave the guy alone. He can eat however much goddamn pudding he wants to without hearing about it from you."

"Shawn," Cory says, warning him to let it go.

"What?" Shawn sneers back, "The last thing you need right now is your ex-wife nagging you."

"She's not my ex-wife," Cory corrects him and that earns an extremely cool glare from Shawn. "I didn't mean-" Cory starts trying to fix that misstep, but Topanga interrupts him.

"No, Shawn's right. It's not my place anymore, and if there was ever a time when you should be able to eat your pudding in peace, it's now. I'm sorry, Cory." Then she turns to Shawn. "I'm sorry, Shawn."

"Whatever." Shawn returns his attention to his phone.

Cory looks back and forth between the two of them for a moment, then shoves another spoonful of pudding in his mouth for lack of anything better to do. He doesn't even want the pudding now.

They ride in uncomfortable silence for a while until eventually Topanga asks Cory how his new job's working out. Cory can feel Shawn grow tense beside him and silently wills him to not say something snottily protective on Cory's behalf, or worse, start making up some lie in an attempt to make things easy for Cory. Shawn, thankfully, does not say anything, so Cory sets down his pudding and decides to just be honest.

Topanga looks absolutely shocked as Cory tells her the story, about everything that went down with Tom, how well the job had been going before that, the conference and then, finally, the circumstances under which Cory quit. To his surprise, Cory finds himself telling Topanga things he hadn't even told Shawn, little details he hadn't even realized were important until now. All of it just spills out of him. He hasn't realized until how much he's been needing a third party to talk to about all of this with. He misses so much having a best friend to talk to whom he isn't also sleeping with.

When Cory's finished with the whole sordid saga, Topanga sits back and shakes her head. "You do realize you have a decent case for harassment, don't you?"

"Oh," Cory stammers, "Yeah, I guess...I don't...I'm not interested in, like, a lawsuit, or anything."

"I'm not saying you should do that," Topanga says, her voice taking on the authoritative tone Cory recognizes from her conference calls, "All I'm suggesting is that you make sure Tom realizes that. It's very much in his best interest to not give you a poor reference to future employers."

"Oh." Cory frowns. "I don't want him to have to lie."

"He wouldn't be lying. You were an excellent employee in every sense other than the fact that you didn't want to sleep with him. If he insinuates otherwise, that's the lie. And he'd be in hot water."

"She's got a point," Shawn says. It's the first time he's spoken up through this entire conversation.

Topanga continues, explaining to them some of the legal issues surrounding former employers, references, and what happens when an employee is forced to leave a work situation under such circumstances. Then she asks Cory, "Has he contacted you since you left Seattle?"

"Yeah," Cory admits, ignoring the incredulous look he gets from Shawn. Cory purposely hasn't mentioned any of the texts, voice mails, and emails to Shawn. "He says he wants to get together and talk about things."

"I think he's pretty aware of the thin ice he's on," Topanga says. "Have you talked to him?"

"No. I've just been deleting the messages."

"Don't do that any more. And you need to meet with him, but make sure you have representation with you. I could even go with you if you like when we get back after the funeral. I'm going to be in town for a few more days after that."

"I'll think about it," Cory says, not liking the idea, but seeing some sense to what Topanga is saying. Maybe his career's not completely over after all-this is a heartening thought.

They fall into silence again. Then Shawn asks, "You seeing anybody?"

Cory feels the blood drain out of his face. Topanga doesn't seem too thrown by the question, though. "No," she says, "I was for a while, but it didn't really turn into anything."

Shawn nods. "It's just, you've been dragging out the divorce proceedings like you're brokering peace in the Middle East."

"I know," Topanga says softly, "I'm sorry."

"You think you'd want to move on with your life already."

Cory could slug Shawn. Why does he have to be such a dick?

Topanga just smiles uncomfortably and doesn't say anything. All three of them are quiet for some time, looking out the window, looking at the floor, looking at their phones. Cory just finds himself looking between the two of them, feeling frustrated. They're the two people in the world Cory knows better than anyone and he can recognize the tense posture and particular nervous movements of both of them. They're also the two people in the world Cory cares about most and this is killing him. Why can't things be the way the used to be?

Then Shawn gets a message notification on his phone and grins as he checks it. He leans over to show Cory a goofy picture of herself that Sadie has snapped and sent to him. Topanga looks at them curiously and Shawn explains, showing her the image, "I bought Sadie an ipad, and this is the kinda stuff I get all the time now."

Topanga smiles. "She's six?"

"Almost seven. I'm pretty sure kids are issued Twitter and Gmail accounts at birth now. I don't even know how to do half the stuff on the computer that she does. She made a goddamn movie last weekend. With music!"

Cory feels a swell of affection for Topanga as she starts asking Shawn about Sadie, picking up immediately on the fact that this is the way to flip his mood like a light switch. She's always been good at reading people. She asks Shawn if he has any new pictures and within seconds he has sat down on the bench beside her and is showing off pictures and videos, babbling about how smart and funny his kid is. All the tension of the first part of their train journey has faded. Cory watches his two favorite people being nice to each other and wishes again that it could be like this forever.

Then, as Shawn's showing Topanga a video he shot of Sadie playing at a children's museum, something strange happens. A tear rolls down Topanga's cheek. She catches it and grabs a tissue from her purse before anymore rogue tears escape, but they've all seen it.

"Hey," Shawn says, "Sorry. I should know when to stop going on like that. Sorry if it's, you know, a sensitive subject for you. I should've..."

"No, no," Topanga shakes her head, dabbing at her eyes. "I'm sorry. I've just been a little emotional lately. It's nothing."

Shawn shoots Cory a worried look and Cory asks her, "You okay?"

"Yes, yes," Topanga assures him, "I'm just being silly and embarrassing myself. Really, it's nothing."

Shawn puts his phone away, returns to his seat, and directs his gaze out the window as a way to give her some modicum of privacy on the train car. Cory just looks at Topanga regretfully, wishing he knew what to say. But she's already put on a big public relations smile and begun checking her email on her phone.

Then, without turning from the window, Shawn puts his hand firmly over Cory's. Cory isn't sure if it's meant to be a possessive thing or a comforting thing, but he does know that Shawn is establishing a boundary.  _Whatever that's about, it's her problem, not ours._ Cory doesn't move his hand from under Shawn's, but he doesn't feel good about it either.

* * *

Shawn's first visit to the Matthews' house after nine years away is not exactly the homecoming he'd expected. There's too many people also showing up at the house-Eric and his family, Morgan and her boyfriend, Topanga, various family members from near and far; Shawn is lost in the shuffle. In a way, though, he's happy about this. He's been so nervous about his inevitable return for so long, anxious about the scrutiny it would place on him, the way Alan and Amy and everyone else would surely be looking at him differently considering his new status as Cory's lover, and considering what they now know about Shawn's checkered past during those years away. Shawn had not been looking forward to having to talk about any of it or, worse, not talking about it but being aware of it as the elephant in the room. This is far better than he could have hoped for. With the house like Grand Central Station and family members running around handling preparations and logistics for the church service, the memorial luncheon, the funeral, the burial, the flowers, the programs...Shawn is greeted with a perfunctory hug from Amy, a nod from Alan, and then is left to his own devices.

Cory is swiftly assigned a list of tasks to take care of and Topanga jumps right in as well, not so much volunteering to help as grabbing jobs and taking them over. Shawn tries to think of something he can do to be helpful, but when he can't and simply asks what it is he can do, Amy brushes him off and tells him, "No, no, sweetheart, you're a guest. Go make yourself comfortable."

Shawn stands there dismayed as Amy rushes off to greet another set of cousins just arrived. Nobody told Topanga  _she_  was a guest-her place as a family member seems already established and assumed. He looks to see if Cory has noticed this, but Cory's off in another world, running through a list of vendors he needs to call. So Shawn tries to mentally shrug it off and wanders out to the back yard, desperate to get away from all of this. If they don't need his help, or want it, then fuck it. He's not part of the family anyway; he's just a  _guest_. He's gonna do whatever the hell he wants to then.

The problem is, he has no idea what he wants to do. What he really wants to do is go back in and be there for Cory, help him get through this, help his family out, be a good partner to their son. He wants to go back in and point out that it's Topanga who's the guest here, who's no longer a member of the family. But it's been made clear that he's the only one who feels this way and that, as always when Topanga shows up, Shawn's been relegated to third wheel status. It feels crummy, but Shawn doesn't want to be a big baby about it. It's probably better to just go ahead and be invisible for the next few days. That seems to be what the Matthews want from him so he might as well just do it.

He throws himself onto the garden bench and slouches back. Goddammit, this makes him feel like shit.

"Why the hell's Topanga here?"

Shawn looks around in surprise, having thought he was alone. He doesn't see anybody and then thinks to look up. Morgan is sitting in the treehouse, smoking a cigarette.

"Beats me," Shawn replies.

"Did she not get the memo that when you get divorced, you no longer show up to your ex's family events?"

Shawn shrugs.

"What a presumptuous bitch," Morgan says. Shawn tries to keep a smile off his face but doesn't fully succeed. Then Morgan adds, "The two of you should get into a big cat fight over Cory, with table-flipping and hair-pulling and shit. That'd really make the memorial luncheon a lot more exciting."

He can't help but laugh at that image and is pleased when Morgan climbs down and takes a seat beside him. "Man," she says, shaking her head, "I really thought I'd seen the last of her. You can't imagine how happy I was when I heard Cory finally came out of the closet and left her for you. Every family event she acts like she's the fucking cruise director. She's so pushy and annoying. I cannot believe she's weaseling her way back in."

Shawn knows he should probably say something in Topanga's defense, but he decides to be selfish and just let Morgan's comments stand because they make him feel better. At least somebody seems happy to see him here.

"Why aren't you helping your mom?" he asks.

"Because I apparently can't do anything right. So now my contribution is not smoking where my mother can see me. Why aren't you helping?"

"I've been told I'm not supposed to help. I'm a  _guest_."

Morgan laughs. "Oh, my god. They're such idiots sometimes."

They sit for a few minutes, Morgan smoking and Shawn quietly marveling at how much she has changed. The last time he saw her she was just a kid, a freshman in high school maybe. Now she's a grown woman working on a graduate degree and, apparently, a pretty solid chain-smoking habit. She reminds him so much of the kind of girls he used to hang around with in New York during his partying years, and this makes him a little sad. Those girls were often times a lot of fun, but their bitterness also struck him as depressingly well-earned. He wonders if Morgan's like that too. She was always a little cynical and world-weary for a kid, and for a Matthews, but it bothers him to think that sarcasm might have grown into genuine bitterness. He hopes not.

Morgan finishes her cigarette and stubs it out on the patio paver. "So, why's she really here?"

Shawn is startled from his thoughts. "Who?"

She rolls her eyes. "Topanga."

"Oh. I dunno." He makes a move to push his hair out of his face before remembering that his hair's too short for him to need to do this. "I guess she still feels like your family is her family. I get that."

"Hmm. Did she ever even meet Nana Boo-Boo?"

"No idea."

"It's gotta be something else. You think she's trying to win Cory back?"

Shawn barks out a laugh. "Shit, I hope not."

"Nah, I don't think she'd be that dumb. Topanga's annoying, but she's not delusional. Or desperate. You'd have to be pretty desperate to think you can get your husband to turn un-gay."

Morgan checks the time on her phone then stands up. "I'm supposed to meet up with Robbie for a drink. You wanna come?"

There are few things in the world Shawn would like more today than a couple of stiff drinks, but he's made a promise to Cory and he doesn't intend on breaking it. He hasn't had a drink since the day he went off the rails and took all that Xanax. "Thanks," he says, "But I can't."

She shrugs. "Suit yourself, Hunter." She takes out another cigarette then and lights it up. "You know," she says, "I'm glad you're back."

"Yeah?" Shawn feels a little burst of pleasure in his chest.

Morgan takes a deep drag and then exhales slowly. "Yeah. Cory's way too boring without you. Anyway, I should get going. Later."

Shawn gives her a little farewell wave as she heads down the driveway to her car. He remains seated on the bench for a few more minutes, thinking about their conversation. Then he takes a deep breath and lets himself back into the house, determined to find something useful to do.  _Guest, my ass._

Inside, however, the house is deserted. The dozens of people there just fifteen minutes ago have all departed, leaving piles of suitcases and half-drunk cups of coffee in their wake. Shawn calls out for Cory, Topanga, Josh, and Amy. No one answers back.

"Well, okay, then," he says to the empty house. He stands in the living room for a moment, half-expecting someone to come down the stairs or pop their head in the front door, but no one does. After a while, he sighs and starts cleaning up the abandoned coffee cups. He'll make himself useful even if nobody knows it.

After the coffee cups have all been cleaned up, Shawn tidies up the kitchen, then the living room. The room is full of suitcases and bags people have been throwing down as they entered the house and moved on to other tasks and Shawn takes a few minutes to move all the luggage out of the main paths of traffic between the front door and the stairs and the front door and the kitchen. The last bags he picks up to move are his and Cory's and, as he does so, he notices something sitting on the floor behind Cory's bag. It's the container of pudding, half-eaten, now abandoned and likely spoiled.

Carrying the pudding to the garbage, Shawn tries not to think of the trouble he went through to get it, the absurd amount of money he shelled out for it, or what it symbolizes that Cory just left it forgotten like that. It's just a stupid container of pudding.

Once he's dumped it in the trash, though, Shawn decides he's done with being useful. He grabs his and Cory's bags and carries them upstairs. Amy had mentioned they'd be sleeping in Cory's old room, which is now Josh's room. As he enters the room, his heart falls. Two very separate twin beds are set up, as well as Shawn's old single sleeping cot.

With a sigh, he heaves Cory's bag onto one of the twin beds, as Josh's stuff is laid out on the other. Then Shawn sets his own bag beside the cot. He's pretty sure that's what Amy had been thinking when she set up the sleeping arrangements: Shawn on the cot, just like always. The irony is not lost on him. Here he's been so worried for months that everyone would think differently of him, and it turns out that, in fact, he hasn't changed a bit in their minds. He's still just Cory's friend, a homeless thirteen-year-old ragamuffin to be tucked away like an afterthought on a fold-up cot. Somehow, that's so much worse than anything he had been anticipating.

* * *

Cory smiles and waves as the last group of cousins gets out of his dad's car and heads into the Days Inn. He's just completed his final bit of chauffeuring, having run to the train station twice and been out to the airport once, picking up relatives, dropping them off, and straightening out miscommunicated hotel arrangements. In between the train station and airport runs, he's also been by the banquet room, the florist, and the funeral home. He actually didn't mind doing any of it; it kept him occupied and kept him from thinking too much about things he'd rather not think about. Of course, now that he has his first few minutes without a task, his mind gets right back to work. He starts thinking about Nana Boo-Boo, about death and mortality, about the kids he's never gonna have, about what he's doing with his life and his career, about Topanga and Shawn. Cory closes his eyes and takes a minute to rest his head against the steering wheel.

There's a knock at the window just then which startles him. It's Topanga. Cory rolls down the window. "Hey, there," he says.

"Hey." She's wearing that same look of anxious discomfort that she was earlier in the day. It makes Cory uneasy. He never likes seeing her look anything but confident and assured.

"Do you need a ride back to the house?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "I've got...somebody's car-a neighbor's? I have no idea, but I'll take it back to the house."

"Okay." Cory plasters on a smile. "Everything all right?"

Topanga bites her lip, then sighs. "Listen, I know it's bad timing, but do you want to go out tonight and have our talk? The one we were supposed to have before all of this happened?"

"Oh. Sure. Of course. You wanna get dinner?"

"Yeah. That'd be fine."

"Okay. Well, I'll just get the car back to the house then I'll let Shawn know he's on his own tonight. I'm sure he can hook up with Eric, or something."

"Actually, I think Shawn should come out with us too."

"Really?"

"Yes. This is something that affects him too."

"Oh." Cory's feeling genuine anxiety about this now. "Is...is there something wrong with the divorce proceedings? Did we screw something up?"

"No, no, that's all fine. It's just got to get finished. I just...we'll talk about it tonight, okay?"

"All right."

"See you back at the house?"

"Yeah."

Topanga heads back to her car and Cory rolls the window up. And now he has something new to worry about.

Back at the house, it takes him a while to locate Shawn, finally finding him upstairs in Cory's old bedroom. He's sitting on the window seat, typing away on his laptop. Cory knocks lightly on the open door so as not to disturb him. Shawn's face lights up as he sees him, though.

"Hey," he says, saving his work and closing the laptop, "How you holding up?"

Cory shrugs."Keeping busy is good."

"Good," Shawn comes over to him and gives him a quick kiss. "You wanna get out of here for a while and get something to eat? Get you away from thinking about all this for a bit?"

The thought of escaping and just being alone with Shawn again is such a nice, tempting idea, but Cory knows it can't happen tonight. "Actually," he says, "Topanga wants to take us out."

Shawn doesn't do a very good job of hiding his annoyance at this news, but he quickly adjusts his expression to try and cover it up. "That what you want?"

"I guess."

"Okay, then. Whatever you want, Cor."

"Thanks."

As they head downstairs, they run into Topanga by the front door. They all take a minute to negotiate what car they're going to take and where they're going to go and, as they're doing so, Amy comes in from the kitchen. Seeing that Cory's picked up his dad's car keys and they're all in their coats, she looks disappointed.

"Where are you guys heading? We were going to order pizza for everybody."

"Aw, thanks, Mom, but Shawn and Topanga and I...well, we sorta already made plans to do our own thing."

"Well, all right," Amy says, then she looks at them warmly, "It's so nice to see the three of you together again. Just like old times."

Cory, Shawn, and Topanga put on polite smiles at this, but not one of those smiles is real.

* * *

They end up at some middle-of-the-road bar and grill place where the music's too loud and the patrons are all sort of middle-aged and suburban-looking. Shawn can't help but reflect that this is the type of place he'd probably end up spending a lot of nights in had he never left Philadelphia. There's something so depressing about that thought. Just another day and a half, he tells himself, then back to New York and everything being normal again.

They put in their food orders, then Topanga orders a Diet Coke and tells Cory he should order a strong drink. He looks a little surprised but does so. Then she says to Shawn, "You probably are gonna want one too."

Shawn feels his ears grow hot, but he just doesn't look at either of them and orders a Sprite. He toys with his water glass as Cory and Topanga start making small talk about people he doesn't know again. He half-listens for a while, but mostly he watches drunken guys at the bar watching the Eagles game. He catches a woman a few tables over giving him a look of interest, tosses her one of his ladykiller smiles, but then looks away quickly so she'll understand that, while he's flattered, this isn't happening tonight. The waitress drops off their drinks and Shawn has never felt more juvenile with his fizzy soda pop. He stabs his straw into it with annoyance.

"So, what's all this about?" Shawn asks finally since neither of them seems to want to get to the point.

Topanga goes a shade whiter, but composes herself quickly. "Well, first of all," she says, and pauses to take a sip of her drink, "It looks like I'm moving back to New York."

_Shit_ , Shawn thinks,  _Are we gonna have to have fucking uncomfortable get-togethers like this all the time now?_ Then, just as he's feeling stupidly possessive and defensive ( _New York's my city, not hers..._ ), Shawn notices just how excited Cory looks at hearing this news.

"That's great," Cory grins, "Is that why you were out here?"

Topanga smiles, appearing a touch more confident than just a minute earlier. "Yes. I was meeting with some old friends of mine at Brown-Elliot. You know they've been after me for years to come back. Looks like we're finally going to make that happen."

"Wow," Cory says, "That's terrific. But what about Sutter-Stone? You're up for partner next year."

"I am," she concedes, taking another long sip and Shawn notes that she's treating it as if it were an alcoholic drink even though it's just a Diet Coke. He'd recognize that manner of drinking anywhere; he's relied on a drink to give him confidence more than a few times.

"The thing is," Topanga continues, "I don't want to be on the other coast anymore. I need to be on the East Coast again. I need to be closer to you."

"What the hell?" Shawn sputters before he can stop himself. Neither Cory nor Topanga pay any attention to him, however. Their eyes remain fixed on each other.

Topanga begins to explain then, in a low, even voice. It's clear she's been practicing how she was going to say this part. "About a month ago, the clinic called me because they still had that last sample you gave them on storage. They wanted to know if I wanted to continue paying the storage fees for another year, or if they should dispose of the material."

Shawn just sits there trying to figure out what on Earth she's talking about. Clinic? Sample? Material? Cory seems to know exactly what she's referring too, though. He's watching her with rapt attention. Shawn doesn't think Cory's even breathing.

"That's exactly how they put it," Topanga says, "'Dispose of the material.' I couldn't-Cory, I just couldn't stand the idea of them just tossing it out in some dumpster, or something. But at the same time, I mean, there certainly wasn't any point in paying for another year of storage. So I...I had the procedure done. I never, ever, thought it would actually work this time. I just thought it was a small price to pay for my conscience, for knowing that it wasn't just dumped out in the trash like a bunch of garbage, that at least I tried one last time..."

"Oh, my god," Cory whispers.

"What?" Shawn demands, utterly confused.

They both ignore him. Cory swallows and finds the voice to ask her, "How-how far along?"

"A month," she says, "four weeks tomorrow."

"Oh, my god."

"Will you guys please tell me right now what the hell is going on?"

Topanga looks at Shawn finally and her expression is so full of pity. "We're having a baby," she says.

Shawn's jaw drops open as he processes this information. He is speechless and looks to Cory for some guidance on how to take this news. Cory himself is now speechless, though, and Shawn's stomach drops as he notes the tears glittering in Cory's eyes. His heart starts pounding as he watches Cory leap up and begin hugging and kissing Topanga, tears now streaming down his face, in front of all those douchebags watching the Eagles game.

Topanga laughs, teary a little herself, and hugs him back, obviously relieved by his reaction.

"I love you," Cory tells her, "I love you so much."

Shawn can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears and he watches, feeling absolutely sick, as Cory sits back down on his side of the booth, still holding both of Topanga's hands in his across the table.

"I'm glad you're my baby's father," she tells him, "You're going to make such a great dad."

They sit there, beaming at each other, and Shawn's vision of the two of them goes a little blurry as the tears appear in his own eyes. He blinks them back successfully, though, and takes a gulp of his too-sweet, useless soda. It hits his stomach like acid, and for a brief, horrible second he worries that he's going to throw it right back up. But he manages to contain himself.

After an eternity, Cory seems to recall Shawn's presence and tears his eyes away from Topanga. "Shawnie..." he starts to say in a strangled voice, tears still streaming down his face.

Shawn forces a smile onto his face, maybe the hardest smile he's ever faked, and he raises his glass. "Congratulations," he says, "This is all you ever wanted, right?"

Cory smiles and it's a little easier for Shawn to fake it then because he can see how truly happy Cory is in this moment. Shawn doesn't know if he's ever seen him look so happy. The tears start threatening to come again, but he fights them off and swallows hard. He raises his glass once more, higher. "Mazel Tov, guys."

And Cory and Topanga are once again enraptured, gazing into each other's eyes as they burst into tears and laugher.

* * *

Cory has way too much to drink at dinner, ordering drink after drink as he babbles joyously and asks the same questions over and over again, not processing any of it. Topanga gamely answers everything, looking at him with such affection. Occasionally, she tosses a warm smile Shawn's way, but he doesn't give her the satisfaction or reassurance of much response. Mostly he keeps his eyes on his plate and works on pushing the food around it from one spot to another. Every time Cory orders another drink, Shawn cringes a little internally, knowing that just means they're going to be here longer. When Cory insists on ordering Topanga an enormous dessert, Shawn wants to deck him. He doesn't say anything, though, and as Cory raises his glass for the third or fourth time and says, "To our baby!" Shawn gamely raises his stupid soda and clinks glasses with them both.

Shawn ends up, of course, having to drive them home and he's glad, actually, that Cory has gotten as drunk as he has because his nonsensical drivel keeps Topanga distracted and means Shawn doesn't really have to make conversation with her. They drop her off at her hotel and Shawn pretends not to notice as Cory gives her a goodnight kiss on the lips and Topanga receives it rather awkwardly.

Cory leans heavily on Shawn for assistance as they walk into the Matthews house and of course,  _of course_ , the living room is full of people: Alan, Amy, Josh, Morgan, Morgan's boyfriend Robbie, Eric, Eric's wife and baby, and even George fucking Feeny. And of course,  _of course_  as Shawn is turning beet-red carrying drunken Cory in front of his family, Cory throws an arm out and announces, "I'm gonna be a father! Topanga's having my baby!"

An odd thought flits through Shawn's head just then that, if this were a TV show, this is the moment when the audience would gasp. But this isn't a TV show and nobody says anything until Morgan says, "Oh, Shit. How's the math work on  _that_?"

Then Eric starts hooting and dancing, "I told you so! I told you so!"

Shawn would be quite happy to just drop dead right there and never have to see any of these people and their staring, aghast faces ever again. He stands there, struggling to hold up Cory, who seems to be getting heavier and heavier against him. Eric is still singing and hopping from foot to foot, turning his pleasure at being right into a fairly elaborate victory dance.

"Is it true, Shawn?" Amy asks finally.

He can't bear to look at her. He just nods and says, "Yeah. But I better get him to bed because he's gonna be puking soon if he stays upright much longer."

Shawn grits his teeth as he attempts to walk Cory to the stairs (when did he get so damn heavy?) but then Alan, god bless him, comes over and puts his shoulder under the other side of Cory, taking most of the weight off Shawn.

"I'm gonna be a dad, Dad," Cory laughs as they start taking him up the stairs.

"That's wonderful," Alan replies, though his voice is strained, probably with the effort of helping carry his son.

When they finally get Cory up to his old room, Alan helps Shawn dump him onto one of the twin beds and then goes out into the hall. He returns a moment later with a bucket that he sets beside the bed.

"I don't think he'll make it to the bathroom if he's gonna be sick," he says.

Shawn nods, take a seat on the floor next to the bed. "Thanks," he says to Alan, attention squarely fixed on Cory, though, who looks like he might already have passed out.

Shawn is surprised when he feels Alan's hand on his shoulder. He looks up and is met with a reassuring smile. "It'll be all right," Alan says.

Shawn appreciates the gesture, even if he doesn't believe him for a second. "Sure," Shawn says, trying and failing to put on a fake smile that has just gotten way too much of a work-out today, "It's great news."

Alan gives Shawn's shoulder a squeeze. "See you in the morning."

Once Alan has gone, Shawn continues to sit there beside Cory's bed, watching him snore. At a loss for what else to do, he removes Cory's shoes and belt and sets them aside. Shawn's heart hasn't stopped racing since Topanga dropped her bombshell and he finds himself now heading over to the window seat, sitting down, and putting his head between his knees. He tries to breathe in deep and exhale slowly, like the meditation shit suggested, but his breaths are quick and shallow, on the verge of a goddamn panic attack. Like a Morse code signal tapping over and over again in his brain comes the message:  _run, run, run. Get the fuck out of here._

Shawn doesn't realize that he's even obeyed this message until he bumps into Morgan on the stairs, half-way out of the house.

"Sorry," she says, as she takes a step back out of his way, "Where you heading?"

He doesn't know how to answer that question, just stands there for a second, realizing that he is panting. Then he does the only other thing he can think to do that makes any sense at all at the moment. "That offer for a drink still stand?" he asks.

Morgan looks a little surprised, but immediately she grins. "Let's get outta here."


	13. I Fall to Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies for the delay in getting this chapter up; real life got crazy for a bit. I want to thank everyone who's continued to stick with this little story and let me know that you're still interested to see where it goes. Your comments really do keep me going with it. Anyway, thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

"That is the craziest bullshit I ever heard," Morgan declares as she sinks a ball into the corner pocket and takes a sip of her whiskey sour.

Shawn shrugs as he surveys the table, planning his next move. "I probably made it sound worse than it actually is."

"How could you? She had herself impregnated with her husband's sperm eleven months after they split up, then makes plans to move across the country to live in the same city he does and then decides to announce this all to him and his new lover over dinner the weekend of his grandmother's funeral? I don't know. It sounds kind of _Fatal Attraction_ -y."

"Yeah," Shawn agrees, "When you put it that way...it's crazy, right? I'm not crazy to think it's crazy, right?"

Morgan takes another shot and misses. "You're not crazy."

Shawn drains his drink before taking his shot and promptly misses.

"Are you letting me win?" Morgan asks.

"Nah."

She gives him a skeptical look and Shawn can't keep a straight face. "Okay, maybe a little."

Morgan rolls her eyes and returns her pool cue to the rack. "We're done then."

Shawn starts to protest, but Morgan has already made her way over to the bar and is ordering another round of drinks. He replaces his pool cue and follows her over to a dark booth in the corner of the bar. When they get situated with their fresh drinks, she looks up at him. "So, what now?"

"What do you mean?"

"What happens to you guys? How does baby change things?"

And Shawn just feels sick at this question. He's been asking it himself over and over again for hours now. After a long pause, he says, "I think he's going back to her."

Morgan looks surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, wife and kids and a perfect life-that's all Cory ever wanted. Now he gets to have it."

"But what about you?"

Shawn frowns. "I don't know. I guess I just go back to how my life was before he came back."

"So you honestly think he's just going to ditch you and go back to his ex-wife?"

"She's not his ex yet."

"Whatever. And you seriously think she's going to take him back? Forget the whole 'I'm gay now' thing?"

He considers this for a moment. It sounds a lot more ridiculous when said out loud. He doesn't know what else to think, though. "Yeah," he says. "I think they're gonna do what's best for the kid. I mean, they were able to make it work for nine years before that. They don't hate each other..." He takes a long sip of his drink and then stares into his glass as he continues darkly, "He told her tonight how much he still loves her. I know he misses her, misses having her around. And I don't think it's any accident that it's taken this many months and the divorce still isn't finalized. I think it's like they were both keeping a hand in, just in case...I don't know. Why  _wouldn't_  they just get back together?"

Morgan looks at him like he's insane. "Because Cory's gay."

Shawn shakes his head. "They worked around that before. Why wouldn't they do it again for another eighteen years for the sake of their kid? They were happy enough."

"You honestly think they would do that?"

"Yeah. I do. People get married for all sorts of reasons. It's not always just about 'I love you' or 'We have great sex together.' It's about committing to something. I don't have any trouble believing that those two could commit to some kind of marriage partnership thing in order to give their kid a good life. I'd do anything for my kid. I'm sure they feel the same way."

Morgan sits back in the booth and sighs heavily. "That's so depressing."

Shawn agrees with this assessment, but can't bring himself to verbalize it. Instead he nurses his drink and tries his best not to feel his heart disintegrating.

After a while Morgan gestures toward his empty glass, asking whether he wants another round. Shawn nods and then moans, "I'm not even supposed to be drinking."

"Then why are you drinking?"

"Because fuck it. What's the point?"

She looks at him, questioning.

He grimaces and throws himself against the back of the booth sadly. "Cory's leaving me. He said he wasn't, but now he has to, and how do I argue with that? I can't. Everybody always leaves..."

Morgan peers at him for a moment, finishes the last sip of her drink, then says, "God, you're melodramatic. I can't believe I ever had a crush on you."

Shawn doesn't pay much attention to what she's said, then looks up as he finally hears past his own preoccupied thoughts. "You did?"

"Of course. Every girl at school did."

He offers her a weak smile at this bit of information, some distant part of him flattered but, really, all he does is immediately start thinking about the grief random people having unwarranted crushes on him has caused for him over the last few months.

"I guess that's the bright side, right?" Morgan says with a sardonic smile, "You're gonna go back to New York and have your pick of guys to hook up with. Or girls. Whichever way it is you're swinging these days. Everybody's always down for a good time with Shawn Hunter."

"It's not the same."

"Why?"

"Cause he's the only one I ever wanted."

"He's just my dumb brother.  _Why_?"

Shawn shrugs. "He just always was. I don't feel that way about anyone else on the planet. I know. I've been with fucking  _everybody_. And nobody's him."

Morgan shakes her head in disbelief. "This is why I told Robbie I didn't know if I could do it."

"Do what?"

"Get married."

"He asked you?"

"Yeah. Right before we found out about Nana Boo-Boo. I haven't given him an answer yet. I'm using my poor, dead grandmother to buy time-how awful is that?"

"It's not awful. That's a big decision."

"I know. I just...I don't even know if I'm supposed to be excited about the idea and want to do it or what. I just know that I don't feel the way you feel about Cory. Or the way Eric feels about Sarah. Robbie is fine. He's smart and funny and reliable. He's got a good future in his field. He loves dogs. He loves  _me_ , God help him. I just...I don't know..."

Shawn watches her fidget, recognizing that she's desperate for a cigarette just now. He can't offer her that, but he sets aside his own worries for a moment and tries to offer her some advice. He's feeling suddenly very, very old.

"Morgan. Don't hitch your wagon to somebody else's star if it doesn't feel 110% right. Just don't. And don't use marriage to stand in for something else. Fuck, look at Cory. You wanna be just quietly unhappy for years until one of you finally gets around to admitting that something's just not right? He did nine years of that crap. I never saw anybody sadder than he was at the end of that."

"Yeah, and now he's gonna sign up for another tour? God, he's such a dumb-ass."

"He's not. He's just a good person who wants to do right by everybody."

"Not by you."

"I'm not that important." He catches Morgan rolling her eyes and swiftly amends this sad-sack statement. "I mean, compared to the mother of his child and his kid. They  _have_  to be more important. I couldn't even respect him if he didn't put their needs above mine right now. He wouldn't be Cory if he did that. I mean, my dad spent his whole life chasing after love and making it clear his kids were just an afterthought. At least Jack had his mom. I didn't have anybody put me first. I'd fucking kill Cory if he ever made his kid feel like that. I don't  _want_  to be more important. It just-"

"Sucks," Morgan completes his thought.

"Yeah," Shawn laughs bitterly. He runs his finger around the rim of his glass and wonders idly if his heart really has just finally turned to dust. He feels as hollowed-out and empty as his glass. And so damn tired. But when he looks across the booth, he knows his heart must still exist somewhere because it aches at how lost Morgan looks. That little girl grew up and got sad. He sees Morgan at ten years old and Sadie twenty years from now and they're converging in this dark bar and he just can't take this vision of despondency and disappointment.

"You okay?" he asks.

She plasters on a fake smile that immediately collapses. "Yeah," she says weakly, "I'm just...it's this stuff with Robbie, and stuff with school...And Nana Boo-Boo's hitting me harder than I expected. And now you guys splitting up...nothing makes any sense right now."

Unable to come up with words to fix that, Shawn reaches across the table and takes her hand. As he does so, someone drops some quarters in the juke box and Patsy Cline's  _I Fall to Pieces_  starts to drift spookily across the bar. Shawn can't help himself and smiles.

"What?" Morgan asks, noticing his smile.

"My dad loved this song."

Morgan looks him in the eyes and Shawn can see that she's holding back tears. "Will you dance with me?" she asks suddenly, "Give my thirteen-year-old self one last thrill?"

And because he'd do anything at this moment to make her happy, he stands and leads her to an open area near the pool tables. He puts his arm around her, takes her hand and begins to lead. He's a little stiff-he hasn't slow-danced with anybody in years, and the whiskey's making him a bit sloppy-but it doesn't seem to matter. She rests her head against his shoulder and they forget everything else in the world for two and a half minutes.

Later, after a few more drinks, another round of pool where Shawn wins easily, and a gloomy cab ride where they barely speak, Shawn makes his way up the stairs to Josh's bedroom. In the dark, he doesn't bother trying to undress and, though his cot is sitting there in the moonlight, calling out to him with Amy Matthews's freshly laundered guest bedding, Shawn lays down on the floor beside the bed where Cory's sleeping. He folds one of his arms to act as a pillow and, with his other hand, reaches up and takes hold of Cory's ankle. He's got the spins and this feels like it might steady him. He also just wants to be close to Cory right now. As Shawn lays there and waits to pass out, the song keeps repeating on an incessant loop in his head.

_I fall to pieces_   
_each time I see you again_   
_I fall to pieces_   
_How can I be just your friend?_

* * *

The forcefulness of the waves in the Atlantic Ocean always surprised Cory. He'd almost toppled over when the first real wave hit him a few steps in, then he grabbed onto Shawn's shoulder to help steady himself, nearly taking Shawn down as well. Shawn had been smiling that big, beautiful smile; it'd barely left his face once that whole day. That smile, and the sand, and the force of the waves, and laughing together on the near-empty beach as the sun went down-those are the things that Cory remembers best about that day. And that Shawn kissed him in the ocean. By that point, they'd been together officially for months, together in the weird destiny connection of their hearts for years before that, so a kiss was no big deal. But this kiss, with the Atlantic slapping them around, trying to topple them over, felt like a first kiss again. He can still taste the salt.

Cory wakes up feeling cotton-mouthed and groggy. All he knows at first is that he was dreaming again about that day at the beach. For weeks now he's found himself back there, reliving that one random July morning they'd decided on a whim to skip off to Montauk. For some reason, his brain has decided to revisit this memory almost nightly, but it's twisted slightly. In his dreams of the beach, Cory loses Shawn just after that kiss, as if he's slipped without a trace beneath the choppy, gray-blue water. The dream always ends with Cory attempting to call out for Shawn but unable to make any sound come out of his lungs.

It takes Cory a minute to figure out where he is now, then to remember why he feels so hungover, then to remember the news that led to him ending up so hungover in the first place. He feels his heart rate pick up a little as it all comes back to him. The giddiness he feels pulsing through his blood stream inspires him to sit up but does nothing to stop it feeling like his brain has lurched forward inside his skull. He winces and presses his palms hard against his eye sockets, trying to cancel out the pressure coming from the inside.

Once he feels safe to open his eyes again, the first place he looks is to Shawn's cot across the room. It's empty and doesn't appear slept in. Cory frowns and looks to Josh's bed where his brother is sound asleep and snoring heavily. According to the Spiderman clock (how long before Josh declares he's too old and cool for that?) it's not even five o'clock. Yet Cory could swear he smells coffee faintly. Suddenly, he wants coffee more than anything.

He starts to throw his legs over the side of the bed then stops. Shawn is asleep on the floor beside the bed. He's still wearing his clothes from the night before and is sleeping without even a pillow. Cory frowns again and steps down carefully around Shawn's body.

"Shawnie," he hisses.

Getting no response, Cory kneels down (scowling at the way this sets his head reeling) and gives Shawn a quick shake. Shawn remains dead to the world and Cory recognizes that he's probably taken a sleeping pill and, by the smell of it, mixed it with some whiskey. Cory's heart sinks at this.

He switches from kneeling to squatting and he shimmies his arms under Shawn and lifts him up, damsel-in-distress-style. He deposits him in the bed and gently undresses him down to his shorts. Then he tucks the covers up around him takes a moment to sit on the edge of the bed and look down at him. Shawn always looks tiny when he's asleep, as if he shrinks without the force of his personality. Cory runs a hand tenderly down the side of Shawn's face. But Cory just can't deal with this-whatever this is-right now; there's far too much racing through his mind this morning. He lingers over Shawn's sleeping form a bit longer, then heads downstairs to investigate the coffee. Surely a cup of coffee will make Cory better able to deal with whatever drama led to Shawn being passed out drunk on the floor. It's fortification.

The sun has yet to rise, but there's a light on in the kitchen. Cory finds his mother sitting at the table, sipping from a mug. She gives him a tired smile as he pours himself a cup of coffee and takes a seat beside her.

"Can't sleep?" he asks.

"I haven't been able to for days, really."

Cory feels a wave of guilt wash over him as he realizes that he's yet to even consider how his mom is doing. He's only been focusing on his own grief at losing his grandmother; he's never even stopped to think about the fact that Amy's lost her mother. "How are you doing?" he asks her, knowing that this is too little concern too late, but that it is at least something.

Amy shrugs. "I knew it was coming for a while. That doesn't make it any easier, though, to be honest."

Cory takes her hand and squeezes it. She gives him a small smile of gratitude and they just sit together in silence for a while.

"Be careful not to take people for granted," Amy says eventually, staring helplessly into her mug. "If there's one thing I regret, it's that I didn't tell my mother enough how important she was to me. Not before she was sick, when she could still appreciate it. I told her so many times these last few months how much I loved her, how much she meant to me, but it was too late-I don't even know if it made any sense to her at that point. I wish I'd said it sooner."

"I'm sure she knew, Mom," Cory says shakily, thinking about how many rote times he told his grandmother he loved her over the years, usually just as a way to get off the phone quicker and get on with his life. Did he ever sound like he meant it? Did she know that even though he's just a dumb guy who sort of thought she'd be there forever, he really did mean it? He tries not to think about this and just focuses on reassuring his mother. "Nana knew you loved her, Mom, even if you didn't say it all the time. All the things you did for her, the time you guys spent together, she could tell. She knew."

"But saying it is so important, Cory. You have to let people know what they mean to you. You never know when it's going to be too late. And then you don't get another chance to say it. Oh, gosh..." Amy's crying a little now and she looks embarrassed at herself as she takes a napkin from the table and dabs at her eyes.

Cory squeezes her hand tighter and looks her in the eye. "I love you, Mom. I want you to know that. How's that for a start?"

Amy laughs a little and blinks back her tears. "I love you too, sweetie."

After a bit, Amy seems to decide that she's ready to change the subject to something happier. She takes a steadying sip from her mug and says, "That's some pretty exciting news you got last night."

"Yeah," Cory widens his eyes, "It doesn't even seem real yet."

"That'll happen in stages. You think it finally feels real when you hear the baby's heartbeat. Then it feels like it's finally real when you get your first ultrasound. Then you start feeling the kicks and you think it's real then. But it doesn't really get real until the doctor's putting the baby in your arms."

That giddiness he's felt since waking turns into butterflies in his stomach and Cory has to set down his coffee. The small scrape of the ceramic mug against the glass table top hits just the right pitch, though, to make his head throb and he winces.

Amy notices and smiles. "You celebrated a little hard last night."

"Mmm."

She stands up and walks over to the fridge. She takes out a bottle or orange juice, a carton of eggs, and the bottle of Tabasco sauce. Cory watches in amazement as his  _mother_  puts together a hangover cure for him. Cory makes a face as she sets down the glass in front of him. The raw egg is floating in the juice like an alien eyeball.

"Just drink it quick," she advises him, taking her seat once more. "Nana Boo-Boo swore by it."

Cory grimaces and drinks it all down in one disgusting go. He immediately follows it with a gulp of coffee to try and erase the taste. Even if the hangover cure doesn't work, at least he has provided amusement for his mother, watching him swallow down that nastiness.

"How's Shawn taking the news?" Amy asks him when he appears to have recovered from this ordeal.

"Oh, he's fine," Cory replies immediately, but then backtracks as he realizes this assertion is based on nothing. "I mean, we haven't really had any time to talk about it yet, but...he seemed happy about it last night."

There's a touch of skepticism to Amy's expression, but she doesn't immediately say anything. Cory grows uneasy as she continues to sip her coffee calmly. Finally, when she does speak, all she says is, "This is something that's going to affect both of you a lot. I hope you find some time soon to have a serious talk about what it's going to mean for you and for him and what it means for your relationship."

Cory thinks about Shawn reeking of whiskey this morning, of him asleep on the floor. He tries but can't remember anything about Shawn's response to Topanga's news last night other than the fact that they all toasted several times. Shawn wasn't even on Cory's radar last night.

They're interrupted then as Morgan pads down the stairs, eyes only partially open. Without any acknowledgement of their presence, she opens the fridge and takes out the orange juice, Tabasco, and eggs. Amy and Cory exchange a smile at this. "Nana Boo-Boo lives on," Cory says.

"I better go grab a shower before the rush starts," Cory adds, climbing to his feet. As he makes his way to the stairs and passes by his sister, he catches her with a one-armed hug and says, "Good morning, Morgan. I love you."

Morgan just grunts in response.

Upstairs, Cory checks to see that Shawn is still sleeping then starts taking out what he needs from his suitcase. He tries to be extra-quiet, but his suitcase has the world's loudest zippers, and Josh ends up waking.

"Hey," Josh murmurs, sitting up.

"Sorry," Cory whispers, "Go back to sleep."

Josh blinks a little adjusting to being awake. "Can I have the shower after you? Will you wake me up when you get out?"

"Sure."

Josh lays back down, satisfied, and is snoring again before Cory even finishes gathering up his toiletries.

In the shower, Cory moves slowly, his brain jumping around half a dozen different topics. He thinks about his poor mother, how he doesn't have any idea what to say to her, what she must be feeling. He thinks about his grandma, how she always wanted to see him give her a grandchild and how happy she would have been if she'd just held out a few more months. He thinks about Shawn, wondering what the hell happened last night, what it was that set him off to drinking again. He thinks about Morgan-what on Earth is going on with her these days? He thinks about Topanga-what must she be feeling right now? Is she scared? Excited? Nervous? But most of all, he thinks about the baby. Every time he thinks about someone else, after a second or two, it always comes back to the baby. Logically, Cory knows he should be nervous and scared. This is the biggest thing that's ever happened to him. And yet he can't seem to make himself feel any of that. All he feels every time his mind comes back to "baby" is delight. It crowds out everything else.

Cory's so distracted by his thoughts that he's unaware just how long his shower has gone until Josh starts pounding on the bathroom door. Cory snaps off the water, towels quickly and steps out into the room. Josh looks annoyed as he gathers up a pile of his clothes and heads toward the bathroom. He pauses in the doorway and turns to Cory.

"I thought you and Topanga were getting divorced," Josh says.

Cory frowns, puzzled. "We are."

"Oh," Josh says and appears even more confused. Then he nods toward Shawn. "You want me to wake him up when I get out so he can have the shower?"

Cory gazes over Shawn, still looking too small beneath the blankets and yet quite peaceful. "No," he says, "Let him get more sleep. I'll wake him up later."

Josh shrugs and slams the bathroom door behind him.

Cory shakes his head and dresses quickly. Then he heads downstairs to see what he can do to help out with the day's events. He just wants everything to be as easy for everyone as possible.

* * *

Shawn wakes up to an empty room and late morning sunlight. He leaps up in panic, thinking everyone has gone on to the service without him. To his relief, however, he then hears voices downstairs and dishes clinking. He checks the clock and notes that there's still almost two hours before the wake begins. Hastily, he grabs some things out of his suitcase, swipes toothpaste from Cory's suitcase after realizing he forgot to bring any, and dashes into the bathroom to wash up.

He showers and shaves with great attention, trying to focus on the task at hand and not to think about anything that went on yesterday or last night, or the fact that Cory is apparently so disgusted by Shawn going back on his promise not to drink that he's abandoned him. Cory didn't even care if Shawn woke up in time for Nana Boo-Boo's wake. He must really be pissed. And Shawn can't blame him. Shawn's mad as all hell at himself. He may no longer reek of whiskey, but the stink of shame doesn't come off in the shower. But then he thinks, as he rinses off the remnants of shaving cream, it doesn't really matter. Cory's leaving him anyway. Might as well disappoint him at the end. Maybe it'll make Cory feel less guilty about having to leave. In a way, it's the least Shawn can do.

Shawn shakes these thoughts away as he rushes to dress and join everyone downstairs. As he's heading down the stairs, he hears Topanga say to Cory, "No, he's up. I heard the shower running." Shawn's ears are flushing red hot as he enters the kitchen and strategically avoids Cory's eyes.

"Morning," Alan greets him. "Want some coffee? We're gonna be leaving in about twenty minutes."

"Thanks," Shawn mutters, accepting the mug and skulking out to the living room to drink it.

He takes a seat in one of the armchairs opposite Morgan, who's focused on typing something on her phone.

"Boy, he's pissed, huh?" Shawn says.

"Who?" Morgan asks without taking her eyes from the screen.

"Cory."

"Oh. I dunno." It's clear from her monotone that she's not really listening.

"You okay?" He asks

"Yup." The tone of her voice does not invite further conversation.

Apparently their bond last night expired at midnight. Or maybe Shawn just imagined it all through booze-and-guilt-soaked lenses. He closes his eyes and drinks his coffee. At least the taste of coffee will never change on him.

He doesn't do it on purpose, but somehow during the shuffle to get everybody into one of the cars bound for the funeral home, Shawn ends up in a totally different car than Cory. He's a strange mix of distressed and relieved when he realizes this. The kicker, though, is that Shawn finds himself in the back seat of Eric's compact rental car, Barnabus's baby seat wedged between them, and Barnabus wailing in Shawn's ear non-stop the entire ride.

"I deserve this," Shawn says to no one in particular.

Eric hears him, though, from the other side of the baby seat and cackles. "Damn right you do," he says, "You got to skip this part with your kid. So not fair!"

Shawn gives Eric a patronizing smile and lays his head against the window. At the mention of Sadie, he starts to miss her keenly. It feels like she's the only person left on the planet who gives a crap about him today. And then he feels even worse because he realizes this is just because he hasn't disappointed her yet. He will eventually. That much is certain. God, he wishes he could disappear into an oblivion right now.

At the wake, Shawn hangs toward the back of the room, not knowing the majority of the people there and wishing to stay out of the way of the Matthewses as they greet people and accept their condolences. Uncertain what to do with himself and not really feeling it's appropriate to take out his phone, Shawn pretends to be deeply fascinated by a number of things: the small memorial card on which he finally finds out Nana Boo-Boo's actual name (Barbara), the bland landscape paintings that decorate the perimeter of the room, the fake floral arrangement that sits on a pedestal beside the guest book. Mostly, though, Shawn focuses on staying out of Cory's line of vision. He doesn't want to cause Cory any additional grief this morning and Shawn knows that if Cory comes to talk to him, Cory's going to feel obligated to talk about Shawn's failure to keep his promise, stay on the wagon, and in general not be a complete fuck-up. That conversation can wait. Let Cory have the day to focus on mourning his grandma, not his shitty, lousy, unreliable boyfriend/best friend/soon-to-be-ex/whatever.

As he's busily avoiding Cory, Shawn turns and walks right into Alan.

"Oh, shit," Shawn blurts before he can stop himself, now doubling his embarrassment because surely it's poor form to curse at someone's wake. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Alan says, rubbing the arm that Shawn had collided with. "I was coming to ask you a favor, actually."

"Oh, yeah?" Shawn replies stupidly.

" _Yeah_ ," Alan mocks him gently. Then the sarcasm drops out of his tone. "Would you be able to be a pallbearer? We forgot to ask you last night."

Shawn is stunned by this request. It seems to him that pallbearers are usually family. "Um, yeah," he manages to reply, "Of course."

"Great," Alan claps him on the shoulder. "You ever done this before?"

"No. Never. My dad was cremated. Sort of a one man job carrying those remains to the cemetery."

"Well, it's not that hard. If you go see the funeral director, he'll give you the gloves. Then just wait until the end of the service and follow what the rest of us do."

"Sure."

As Alan moves to greet a new set of people who've just arrived, Shawn goes and gets his gloves from the funeral director. They're funny little white cotton gloves. Shawn puzzles over them a minute before he tucks them into the pocket of his suit jacket. Just as he's about to resume his post of trying to be invisible in the back of the room, Amy approaches him.

"How are you holding up?" she asks.

"Me? I'm fine. I didn't really know her that well, but she seemed like a really nice lady. I'm...I'm sorry for your loss."

Amy smiles at him. "I meant about the baby."

"Oh." It takes Shawn a second, but he manages to whip up a bright smile and kick out the words, "I'm really happy for them."

Amy just shakes her head and rubs Shawn's arm. He isn't sure what to do with this but, luckily, Alan comes over to them then and informs Amy that the service is going to start soon.

"All right," she nods. Then she reaches out and grabs Shawn as he immediately starts to head for the back row of chairs. Without a word, she leads him to the front row and sits him down beside her and Alan.

Shawn sits in the chair stiffly, feeling like everyone in the room is starting at him. When he turns to look, though, nobody seems to be paying him any attention. They're all just getting settled in their own seats, apparently unconcerned about the interloper in the immediate family row. Then Shawn spies Topanga taking a seat near the back and he turns to face forward again quickly, before she can see him looking at her. Just as he's sitting there, struggling to make sense of this, Cory sits down in the chair on the other side of him and takes Shawn's hand.

Cory gives him a tired smile and squeezes Shawn's hand tight as the service begins. With great determination, Shawn pushes every other concern to the side and tries to focus on listening to the service and paying his respects to Nana Boo-Boo. He does such a good job of this, in fact, that he is completely caught off guard when Cory stands and makes his way to the podium to read the Rosetti poem Shawn had helped him pick out a few days ago, back when everything had been okay.

Despite himself, Shawn finds that he is tearing up, listening to the words. It's a poem he has always thought quite beautiful and unsentimental, but it's hitting him harder than expected. He finds himself thinking about everyone he has lost, feeling each individual pain anew. And watching his sweet Cory, whom Shawn is now about to lose as well, reading the words is just too much. It takes every fiber in Shawn's being not to let those tears escape.

Cory maintains his composure through most of the poem, though his voice cracks and falls apart on the last stanza. He soldiers through, repeating the lines wobbly but more clearly, then returns to his seat and weeps openly on Shawn's shoulder. Without a second thought, Shawn puts his arm around Cory's shoulder, pulls him close, and kisses him. He doesn't care that this is the first time they've ever shown any demonstration of physical affection in front of Cory's family. He doesn't care that Cory's about to go back to Topanga and maintain the illusion of his picture-perfect heterosexuality. He doesn't care that probably a lot of the old people here (and many of the not-so-old people) will be scandalized by one man kissing another in the front row at a memorial service no matter what their relationship. All he cares about in this moment is that Cory is in pain and Shawn wants to fix it.

But then the service is ending and Shawn rises along with Cory, Alan, Eric, and a couple of cousins from Amy's side of the family that Shawn doesn't know. They slip on their gloves and take positions alongside the casket. The funeral director secures the top and then gives the signal for them to begin the procession to the hearse. Shawn's surprised to find that, even with six men carrying it, the coffin still weighs a ton, but he does his best not the show the strain.

After the hearse is loaded up, the funeral director starts handing out temporary orange car stickers for the procession to the cemetery. In the mild chaos of people scrambling to get stickers and then to hastily organize the order of cars, Shawn gets separated from Cory. Shawn ends up catching a ride to the cemetery with one of Cory's cousins, a pleasant enough middle-aged guy and his wife. They make small talk during the ride, talking about what they do for a living. The guy and his wife both work in IT and are politely patronizing when Shawn says he's a writer, acting as if he's said he's a waiter/aspiring movie star. Shawn's used to this kind of response-it's just one of those job titles that sounds vaguely ridiculous to people with 'real' jobs-and he's long ago gotten over the need to inform them that he's had six books on the New York Times bestsellers list. The small talk drags on, though, and they get to the inevitable question of how Shawn knows the Matthews family. Without a second thought about it, Shawn says that he's Cory's friend.

"We grew up together," he explains. They seem satisfied with this and Cory's cousin starts saying something about the weather forecast for the day. Shawn isn't listening, though. He's busy thinking about how disappointing it is that he never even once got to go back to Philadelphia and introduce himself as Cory's boyfriend.

* * *

Looking back on it, Cory has almost no memory of Nana Boo-Boo's actual funeral. He knows that he spent the entire ride from the funeral home to the cemetery fussing over the fact that Shawn wasn't in the same car with him, and that when they were finally reunited at the graveside, Cory did not let go of Shawn's hand throughout the ceremony. He remembers that the grass at the cemetery-seemingly endless acres of it-was impossibly green. Mostly, though, he spent the ceremony reeling, his mind spiraling into a panicked despair as he started thinking about all his loved ones and the inescapable fact that they were, every one of them, going to die. He thought about the idea of losing his parents, his siblings, his aunts and uncles and cousins, family friends and neighbors, Mr. Feeny...He thought about Topanga and the tiny life inside her, how it was so early in the pregnancy with so much potential for something to go wrong before the baby even took its first breath. And he thought about Shawn. He thought about Shawn's perfect body growing old and frail, his Shawn fading away in some sterile hospital room decades from now or, worse, Shawn found crumpled up in an alley someplace weeks, months, or a handful of years from now after some stupid, self-destructive bender gone wrong. However it happened, Shawn would eventually be gone from this plane, his beautiful smile never to light up the world again. This idea overwhelmed Cory and he stood expressionless, numb with fear, as his grandmother was lowered into the ground. What he remembered most about Nana Boo-Boo's burial was that feeling of overwhelming terror and the alarming color of the grass.

Now he is sitting at a table in the Windsor Room at the Denunto Banquet Hall, a room he's been seated in a dozen times before for funeral luncheons, weddings, and a Bat Mitzvah. He knows the menu that will be served by heart; there will be a chicken breast, asparagus, mashed potatoes and rolls served with little gold foil-wrapped pats of butter that are still cold from the fridges in the back. He knows that after the meal there will be two carafes of coffee (one regular, one decaf) delivered to the table and little fluted cups of rice pudding that Cory's historically been quite fond of. He knows from the contract he signed off on himself the day before that this meal and service costs $14.95 per person plus 18% gratuity. He knows every detail of what to expect for the next ninety minutes, but somehow it all feels terribly wrong.

Before the little plates of salad even make their way around the table (with guests' choice of Ranch or Italian dressing), Cory is up and making his way briskly between the tables and out to the lobby. He doesn't hear Shawn or Topanga asking where he is going, if he is all right. All he hears is a rising rush of air in his ears as he concentrates on the singular desire to get away from everyone and everything for one moment so he can breathe.

Outside, standing beside an ornamental fountain in a "European-style" paved courtyard, Cory finally regains a sense of normalcy. He breathes the fresh air in deeply, removes his suit jacket and loosens his tie. Then he takes a sit on the ledge of the fountain and closes his eyes.

He tries to figure out what he wants, what would possibly make everything feel right again after days of it all feeling off. The job situation is certainly worrisome, even more so than he has cared to admit, and mortality seems to be closing in on him from all sides. The news about the baby and Topanga's return to New York have been wonderful, no doubt, but Cory still feels unmoored. He knows that he needs  _something,_ some constant that brings security to his life.

And then, gazing down at his scuffed dress shoes on the faux-cobblestone, Cory knows for certain what he needs to do.


	14. The Leaves in Vermont

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here, after a stupidly long wait, my epic Cory and Shawn tale comes to an end. I want to give a sincere thank you to everyone who's been reading and/or commenting along this whole time. Writing this story was a nice distraction during a difficult time in my life, and knowing that folks were enjoying the story and invested in it has meant so much to me. I truly appreciate every reader, reviewer, and commentator. Thank you all so much.

As he sits in the courtyard of the banquet hall, thinking about the certainty of the decision he has just made, Cory feels relief wash over him. The decision is absolutely right, he knows this. And in this moment of realization, all the weight of the day, the past few days, the past few weeks, the past few months, lifts off him. A sort of pure happiness bubbles up inside of him and Cory finds that he is smiling.

It's at just this moment that a message notification dings on his phone. Cory's first reaction is horror-this means that his ringer was on all throughout his grandmother's wake and funeral. Had anyone happened to phone him, send him an email or a text message, it would have been mortifying. But that didn't happen, he reminds himself, and shakily picks up the phone, in no real hurry to return to the gloom of the luncheon when he's finally feeling good and certain about things again.

The notification was for an email message. He pops into his inbox to have a look. It's an email from Dipthi, of all people-the woman from their rival production company he'd gotten to talk to a bit at the conference. The email reads:

_Hi, Cory Matthews!_

_It's Dipthi Singh from Colorbox. Heard through the grapevine that you've parted ways with dear Tom. Don't know if you're already on board with anybody else yet, but I've got some contract work I thought you'd be a good fit for. Give me a call if you're interested._

_D_

_P.S. Tell your smart brother I said Hi. It was delightful talking with him._

In the automatic signature line are Dipthi phone and fax numbers at Colorbox. Without hesitation, Cory dials her number.

"This is Dipthi."

"Hi, Dipthi. It's-"

"Cory Matthews! Nice to hear from you. And so soon-what did I send that? Thirty seconds ago?"

"Yeah. I'm actually at my grandmother's funeral luncheon right now."

"Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry..."

"Eh, it's okay. I'd actually love to spend a couple of minutes talking about something that has nothing to do with death and family."

"You're an odd bird, Cory Matthews."

"I can't argue that. Okay to talk, though?"

"Sure thing."

"Do you want me to tell you why I left Tom's company?"

"Don't really care, to be honest. I used to work with him. I can use my imagination."

"Oh," Cory pauses. This certainly isn't the response from a prospective employer that he'd been expecting. "Okay, then."

He swears he can hear Dipthi smile. "Alrighty," she says, "Wanna hear a bit about this project?"

Cory's shoulders relax for the first time in days. "Yeah, please. Tell me all about it."

* * *

Barnabus is screeching again. The problem now is not that Shawn is trapped in a compact rental car beside him. The problem is that Eric has handed Barnabus to Shawn and promptly wandered off to locate his wife.

"Shhhh, shhh," Shawn hisses at the infant, "Please stop screaming, baby."

Their table was supposed to be comprised of Shawn, Cory, Topanga, Morgan, Robbie, Eric, Sarah and Barnabus. Sarah is no where to be found, Eric has abandoned Barnabus with Shawn and walked off after her, Morgan and Robbie are having a hushed conversation on the other side of the room (it doesn't look good the one time Shawn ventures a glance their way), and Cory has disappeared to God knows where. Shawn feels the pull to go after him, see if he's alright, but he's stuck here with this screaming infant and his only company is Topanga who's giving him what he's sure is meant to be a sympathetic look but is just making Shawn irrationally irritated.

"Can you help me?" he finally snaps at her, "You're the one who needs the practice with this."

Topanga is wearing her patented "patient saint" expression (Shawn remembers being annoyed by it many a time in the past) as she stands up and takes the baby from him. Shawn is secretly quite pleased that the baby doesn't immediately stop wailing once he's in Topanga's arms. She jiggles him and coos, but none of it has any effect. Shawn glances at the door Cory had left through and is about to go looking for him when Topanga says, "Please don't leave me alone here."

Shawn looks back at her and the table with its eight empty chairs and relents. He throws himself down in front of his untouched plate of salad and watches her struggle with Barnabus. A year from now, he thinks, she'll be doing the same thing with a baby that looks like Cory, all dark curls and Hershey syrup eyes. And Cory will be at her side. And Shawn will be somewhere else. Probably knocking around his now too-big apartment, lonely as fuck, just counting down the days between visits from Sadie and trying not to think about the eleven happy months he got to have once upon a time before it all got taken away.

Then Eric and Sarah return, only to scoop up Barnabus and announce that he needs some ear drops they've left at the hotel so they're leaving.

Topanga and Shawn just watch dumbly as they depart, taking their still-screaming child with them.

"Have fun with  _that_ ," Shawn says to her, nodding in the direction of the departing baby.

Topanga gives him a forced smile, and sips from her water glass.

"I should go find Cory," Shawn says and starts to stand, but Topanga reaches out to stop him.

"No," she says, "I think he needs a little time to himself. If he wanted us to be with him, he wouldn't have walked off by himself. He's really shaken up, Shawn."

 _I know he's shaken up_ , Shawn thinks bitterly, but doesn't say it out loud. Instead he sinks back into his chair. He defers to Topanga's decision about what Cory needs. She's the one in charge now. She's the one who won.

"It's nice to be back in Philly," Topanga says brightly, obviously trying to direct things in a more pleasant direction, "Even if it is for such a sad occasion."

Shawn shrugs.

"Do you still have any family here?" She asks, "Any of your uncles or cousins or anything?"

"Nope," Shawn replies. His Uncle Mike is technically still nearby, in the state prison, but he doesn't feel like mentioning that.

"Where's Jack living these days?"

"New York."

"Oh, wow. Do you see him often?"

"Nope."

"Are you going to eat your salad?" She tries again.

"Nope."

"Do you mind if I eat mine?"

"That's what you're supposed to do, right?"

"Well, it's always a little awkward to be the only one eating."

Shawn wants to pound his head against the table. Was she always this annoying? But he makes a conscious decision not to lose his temper. He's too exhausted and defeated to muster the energy for it. Besides, what good would it do? It wouldn't change anything. He takes a deep breath and reaches for a roll. "I'll keep you company," he says.

Topanga gives him a real smile then, and he softens a little. He starts tearing off pieces of his roll and popping them in his mouth while she eats her salad. He tries to think of something nice to say, but everything he's contemplating sounds crabby. He finishes the roll while he's thinking, then wonders if she somehow engineered that on purpose to get him to eat. Probably. How did he forget how smart she is? Finally, he thinks of something to say.

"Did Cory tell you Sadie's smart?"

Topanga looks at him, confused.

"She's like you," he explains, "Testing off the charts and everything. She's like, way beyond her classmates."

"That's wonderful. You must be proud."

"Yeah, but, I'm terrified too. I don't know what I should be doing for her. I'm afraid I'm gonna...I dunno, mess her up or not help her live up to her potential or whatever because I don't have any idea what to do for a smart kid."

Then Topanga smiles one of those big, sweet smiles that reminds Shawn that he never really hated her. She's always been tremendously kind to him. "I'm sure you're doing just fine," she says. "Is she in gifted classes? It's important that her work's challenging."

"We're actually switching her into private school because of that. Anna and I are scoping out our top two schools next week. We're hoping we can start her at one of them after Christmas."

"See? You're doing fine."

"Yeah," Shawn sighs, rolling a cherry tomato around his salad plate with a fork, "School is school, but what should _I_  be doing?" He looks over the little red ball intently, "What did you need from your parents?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. What do smart kids need from their parents? I have no idea."

Topanga laughs. "They need the same things any other kids need: love, support, attention. It sounds like you're already doing a really good job of giving her that."

When Shawn does not appear convinced, Topanga elaborates. "I actually really admire the way you and Anna are making things work. It sounds like you're putting Sadie's needs first and not letting all the relationship baggage and history between you two get in the way of that. My parents never managed to do that and I wished so much they did."

Shawn hadn't even thought about the fact that Topanga's parents split up, about the way the problems in their relationship always seemed to consume them, Topanga left to look out for herself so much. It occurs to him then that, had her parents been less distracted, she might never have given up the chance to go to Yale. She might never have married so young and, ultimately, so unhappily. For the first time in his life, Shawn doesn't feel jealous of her. He feels empathy toward her. Her parents screwed her over nearly as badly as his did. He wishes he'd realized this back then. He might have felt a lot less alone.

"But you turned out okay," he says.

"So will Sadie. She'll turn out great. Just keep loving her and being there for her. Keep putting her first."

And then a bit of the pain returns. "Like how you guys are gonna put your kid first?" he can't help but say.

"Absolutely," she smiles, "I'm looking at you as the model."

Shawn doesn't know how to take that statement, but he doesn't get a chance to puzzle it out because Cory returns then with a great big grin on his face.

"Hey," Shawn greets him, "Where'd you go?"

"I just needed some air," Cory says, brushing off Shawn and Topanga's concerned looks, "And then I got this email and ended up having a really interesting phone conversation. I just got offered a job."

"What do you mean?" Shawn asks, just as Topanga claps her hands together and says, "Oh, Cory, that's great news!"

"Yeah," he replies, looking a little dazed, "I mean, it's just a contract job, not long-term, or anything, but if it goes well, it could lead to some good stuff."

"Yes!" Topanga cheers, and Shawn recognizes her putting on her lawyer demeanor. "Okay," she says, laying her hands flat on the table, meaning business, "I want to hear all the details and then we're going to hash out a game plan."

Cory looks a little taken aback but not displeased as he sits down beside her. "Do I need a game plan?"

"Cory," Topanga says, laying her hand over his, "You're getting a second chance. No offense, but I am not letting you screw it up."

"Okay," Cory nods, "Tell me my game plan."

Shawn stops listening then as Topanga coaxes Cory into giving her all the details about the contract job, this new production company, everything he and this Dipthi woman discussed. Shawn just feels left out. He'd have no idea how to form a "game plan" for Cory. He'd just be happy for him, probably take him out somewhere to celebrate. But once again he reminds himself: Topanga is running the show now.

After a while, he excuses himself, saying he needs to go to the mens room, and neither of them pays him much mind. Once he gets to the lobby, though, Shawn doesn't head to the mens room; his heart has started up racing again. Instead, he makes he way through the lobby, flanked by several other banquet rooms, and spies an entrance to the enclosed courtyard. Outside there is a fountain and some urns with large plants in them. There is also a small bench set into a niche that cannot be easily seen from inside the building. He lowers himself onto the bench and immediately puts his head in his hands, glad to finally have found a place where he can be alone.

He tries to breathe again, like he had learned from the mediation CD Cory had bought him. He tries to picture himself someplace quiet and calm, tries to mentally slow down his heart. It does little good, though, and he starts thinking about escape. He wonders if anyone would care (or even notice) if he left right now. He could head back to New York, get a jump on starting his life over, ripping off everything Cory-related like a Band-Aid. Maybe he'll sell the apartment-too many memories. Hell, maybe he'll move to New Jersey, be closer to Sadie. He could see her a lot more, maybe walk her to school, pick her up from her tumbling class, take her to the movies on the spur of the moment...and he wouldn't have to worry about running into Cory and Topanga, pushing their kid around in some $700 stroller, acting like everything turned out just like they always planned it.

As he's lost in these thoughts-fantasizing about running away feels almost as good as actually running away-Shawn suddenly becomes aware of the fact that someone is standing in front of him. He lifts his head from his hands and follows the legs of a gray tweed suit up to their attached body, then the head, and finds himself looking up at George Feeny.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hunter. Would you mind terribly if I took a seat?"

* * *

Although he's at his Grandmother's memorial luncheon and the day has been a deluge, drowning him in difficult emotions, Cory can't stop himself from smiling. Everything is finally falling back into place. He can look out across this bland banquet room full of mourners and see each step of the rest of his life laid out before him. His job, his family, his child, his love life...all of it is now clear to him and reassuring in its rightness.

He glances over at Topanga and knows that part of what's felt so off lately was the fact that she was no longer present in his life. Having her back, knowing that he can be with her, talk to her, reach out and touch her every day if he wants to-makes Cory feel so much better. And grateful. He wants to tell her this, thank her for coming back into his life and helping him to remember just how much he needs her. Instead of saying this, though, he just gives her a smile. He hopes-no, he knows-that she understands.

"I gotta go see what happened to Shawn," he says eventually. They've long since finished talking about Topanga's game plan for Cory's new job, started in on their chicken and asparagus, and still Shawn hasn't returned.

Topanga gives him a little nod and Cory heads off. There's no sign of Shawn in the mens' room, in the lobby, or in any of the other banquet rooms as far as Cory can tell. Then he thinks to poke his head out into the courtyard and sees Shawn seated beside George Feeny. Cory turns back quickly, not wishing to disturb them, and returns to the luncheon. Shawn's in good hands.

Topanga's engaged in conversation with one of Cory's great aunts when he gets back, so he just takes his seat and tucks into his meal. He watches her face, so animated and attentive to whatever Auntie Helen is saying, and Cory feels an almost overwhelming affection for her. He can't imagine a better woman he'd want to have a child with, raise a child with, grow old together with while holding hands and being partners. Cory never wants to lose her again.

Auntie Helen shuffles off back to her table after a bit and Topanga notices that Cory's watching her, smiling. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asks him.

Cory looks into her big, pretty eyes, her kind, warm face, and he wants to tell her about what he decided he's going to do, the question he wants to ask. But the timing doesn't feel quite right. Instead, he just says, "I love you."

"Oh, Cory." Topanga looks pleased and a little embarrassed. She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek then returns her attention to her plate.

Cory passes her his roll because he knows for all the events they've attended here together that she likes them a lot. He also knows that in a short while, when the cups of rice pudding get served, she'll give hers to him, just like she always did.

It's good to be back to knowing everything that's going to happen. It feels right. It feels safe.

* * *

George Feeny is sitting beside Shawn, smoking a cigarette.  _Mr. Feeny_  is sitting right next to Shawn. And Mr. Feeny is  _smoking_. Shawn's just about jumping out of his skin at the weirdness of this situation.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Hunter?" Mr. Feeny asks following a long drag, exhaling through his nose.

Shawn almost chokes but manages to say in a strangled-pretending-to-be-calm voice, "I just didn't know you smoked."

"Is it bothering you?"

"Nope."

"Filthy habit."

Shawn just nods, feeling like this is what he's supposed to do. The smell of cigarette smoke is one he actually doesn't mind. It makes him nostalgic. His dad and his grandma always smelled like tobacco, and it's a scent he associates with being very young, sitting on the carpet and watching TV while Chet and Grandma Hunter shared a pack of Parliaments on the sofa. It's kind of a surprise to Shawn that smoking was the one bad habit he never picked up. He's still not sure why it never happened.

"I gave it up as a daily habit in 1973," Feeny says then, sounding a bit nostalgic himself, "And then years later, at my mother's funeral, I wanted one more than anything, so much so that I was distracted by it and missed the entire sermon. Since then, I've found that if I allow myself the ritual of a single cigarette when I attend a funeral, I have no craving for them the remainder of the time. I suppose sometimes it takes forgiving ourselves an indulgence now and then in order to move past the continuous desire for things we wish we didn't want."

Shawn has no idea what to make of this confession. Mr. Feeny has always seemed like the most refined, intelligent person Shawn could imagine. It's difficult to amend that image to allow for him having any sort of bad habit or addiction. That's the sort thing only stupid people like Shawn have to deal with. He can't picture Feeny even purchasing a pack of cigarettes, let alone struggling to give them up, keeping it all a secret. Feeny's not supposed to have any weaknesses like that, any problems that aren't easily solved. Feeny is wiser than anybody.

But it's just cigarettes, after all. Shawn wonders what Feeny would think if he knew about all the far worse things that Shawn got caught up with over the years. How much less would Feeny think of Shawn if he knew that he spent years in drugged-up haze, using anything and everything that was offered to him? What would Feeny say if Shawn explained how a day doesn't go by where he isn't tempted to go out and find something like that again, float away in that glorious numbness and temporary relief from his problems and his life? How disappointed would Feeny be to know that Shawn can't even keep a promise to Cory not to drink for more than a few weeks, that at the first bit of bad news he receives, he's right back at the bottom of a bottle, feeling simultaneously sorry for himself and ashamed? Does Feeny even realize that all his faith in Shawn over the years was misplaced? Does he realize what a colossal fuck-up Shawn Hunter turned out to be?

"You seem troubled," Feeny says then, startling Shawn out of his self-flagellating thought spiral.

"Nah, nah, I'm fine," Shawn replies, but then he finds himself going on anyway, since he's never been able to lie well to Mr. Feeny, "It's just...you were there last night. You heard about Cory and Topanga."

"Ah, yes. Remarkable news."

"Yeah," Shawn says with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. "Good for them. I couldn't be happier." He stews over these empty statements for a bit before he continues. "But it means that's it for me and him, you know? He's gonna go back to her and pretend like nothing ever happened."

It's unclear whether Feeny's surprised by this. Shawn is adamantly not looking at him, just facing forward. It's hard enough saying all this stuff; Shawn can't be expected to  _look_  at him as well. And when Feeny replies, his tone is as inscrutable as always, "Is that what he's told you he intends to do?"

Shawn starts to say 'yeah,' then realizes it's not exactly the truth. Cory hasn't  _told_  Shawn he intends to do anything. But he's so damn predictable-Cory Matthews is nothing if not predictable-that Shawn knows this is what Cory is going to do.

"He's too in love with that image of his life to pass up the chance," Shawn says, "It's what he's always wanted. Now he has the perfect excuse to finally have it."

"And this vision of his life doesn't include you?"

"Oh, sure. I'll be the guy who shows up on holidays 'cause he doesn't have a family of his own, and they feel sorry for me, and his kid'll call me 'Uncle Shawn' and maybe if I'm lucky Cory'll have me over once in a while for a secret rendezvous when Topanga's out of town, and then after that I'll have to listen to him cry and be guilty about what he's done, and then someday, of course, his kid is gonna find out about us and be scarred for life, or something, and Topanga will tell him he can't ever see me again, and I'll be the bad guy all over again, and I'll have to go away again just like I did before. Then I'll be, like, a million years old at that point, and I'll have nobody because I wasted my whole damn life pining over that idiot but, really, I'm the idiot because I couldn't just go out and make myself love someone else 'cause that would be the smarter thing to do. And then I'll be old and alone and bitter, drinking my days away, probably getting fucked up on drugs again, because that worked out so well the last time, and not learning from my mistakes and being a weak-ass screw-up is kinda my M.O..."

Shawn's almost panting, he's talking so fast. He can't believe he's told all this to Mr. Feeny. And, yet, he can't seem to stop himself from going on.

"It's stupid, but he's breaking my heart. Again! And I'm  _mad_  at him for that. And mad at me for letting him do it again...I'm mostly mad at me. I'm not handling this well. I don't handle anything well, really. I guess I'm kinda getting sick of how not well at all I handle things. I'm sick of being me. Shit-" he cuts himself off, realizing that he is babbling and if he continues on any longer, he's going to start crying. His heart has started drumming against the inside of his chest in twelve-eighths time, and it seems that when that happens, Shawn's natural instinct is to try and outrun it, even if it's just his mouth that's doing the running.

They sit in silence following this monologue and Shawn does his best not to wonder what Feeny is thinking about him now. Shawn's hands have started shaking, as if to match his heartbeat, and he shoves them into the pockets of his suit jacket to try and cover this up.

Then, finally, Feeny speaks. "The idea of how we expect our lives to be is a powerful thing."

Shawn grunts in response, thinking Feeny's talking about Cory's infatuation with his dumb 1950s fantasy life, but then he realizes that Feeny might actually be talking about Shawn and the vision he just laid out of how his life is going to be. Or maybe Feeny's talking about both of them. Dammit. Why does Feeny have to be so  _Feeny_?

"What am I gonna do?" Shawn asks softly. He finally brings himself to look at Feeny, desperate for whatever guidance he might offer.

"I suspect you'll do what you have always done when adverse situations have come your way." Feeny stubs out his cigarette and gives Shawn a wry smile, "You'll find a way to persevere and triumph. You always have."

Shawn is about to scoff at this, point out all the ways in which this is the exact opposite of the truth, but he stops as Feeny says, "Which reminds me," and starts to reach for something from the interior breast pocket of his suit jacket. Shawn holds his tongue, curious to see what magical totem Feeny is about to produce. To Shawn's surprise, Feeny takes out a small hardback copy of the first Cheaty O'Zero book.

"It's a first edition," Feeny says, sounding, well, sounding  _proud_ , Shawn thinks, as he sets the book onto Shawn's knee, "It's a bit self-serving, I suppose, but I was hoping I might have a moment today with the author, that he might be gracious enough to sign it."

Shawn gazes down at the book. He's seen the book about a million times, can probably recite it word for word, he spent so long revising it. And yet, it looks different at this moment. It's no longer just a silly book with a cartoony cover that one might find squashed between the mattress and the wall of a hundred thousand kids' bedrooms across America. In Feeny's hands it has indeed transformed into a kind of magical totem. It's a reminder of the time Shawn thought his life could not get any lower and he somehow managed to turn it around, to refashion his life into something better than he ever dared dream it could be. He did it before. He can do it again. He will do it now not for himself, but for Sadie and for Cory and for Amy and Alan and Mr. Feeny and for everyone else who has believed in him and loved him despite his many, many flaws and failures.

As Shawn takes a pen out of his own breast pocket and turns to the title page of the book, he writes the thought that he is feeling most deeply in his heart right now:

_Thank you._

* * *

Breaking from the pattern of the rest of the day, Shawn finds himself riding home from the funeral in a car with Cory. And Topanga, of course. The three of them say very little, all preoccupied with their own thoughts. It turns out that they have the house to themselves as well. Amy and Alan have taken Josh and gone to spend time with some of the out-of-town cousins they haven't seen for a while, Eric, Sarah and Barnabus have not returned from their hotel, and Morgan and Robbie have not been seen since the beginning of the luncheon. The house is eerily quiet with everyone gone, though. The three of them sit in the living room and continue to not really talk, uncertain what to do with themselves. Then Topanga takes out her phone and begins responding to work emails. Cory volunteers to put on a pot of coffee and heads into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, Cory leans back against the sink as the coffee brews. He's not in any hurry to go back out there. The conversation he needs to have with Shawn is frightening him suddenly, making his hands feel numb and his breath hard to catch. He closes his eyes and tries to compose himself.

_This is for the best. This is what I want. I know that._

He nearly leaps out of his skin as Morgan bursts in the back door and throws her purse onto the kitchen island. It skids across the countertop, though, and lands with a heavy thump on the floor. Morgan ignores it, heading straight for the refrigerator. She yanks open the freezer door and glares at the contents until she finds what she is looking for-a bottle of vodka. She unscrews the cap and begins drinking straight from the bottle.

Cory doesn't know what he's more surprised by: that his parents keep a bottle of vodka in the freezer, that Morgan seemed to already know this, or that she is currently gulping it down like a Siberian mineworker.

"Hey," he says, reaching for the bottle, "Slow down a little."

Morgan jerks back, keeping the bottle out of his reach. She narrows her eyes at him, but does lower the bottle and stops drinking to say, "Robbie and I are over."

"Oh," Cory says, not sure the best way to respond. He wasn't especially crazy about the guy, but he and Morgan had been together for while. "I'm sorry."

Morgan just takes another swig of vodka.

"Kinda crummy of him to break up with you at your Grandmother's funeral," Cory can't help but add.

Morgan's eyes grow wide behind the mouth of the bottle. She lowers it and points it at Cory in a forceful gesture, splashing a little vodka in the process. "You should talk!" she snarls.

"Huh?"

"Now you're just gonna drop Shawn like that? Go back to Topanga and pretend like nothing ever happened? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Cory freezes. Morgan's face is furious and full of disgust and he can't take his eyes from it and its accusation.

"Why-why do you think that?" he finally manages to say, his tongue feeling limp and difficult to maneuver between his teeth.

"He told me."

Cory just stares at her for a horrified, sick second. Then he stomps past her back into the living room hollering, "Shawn!"

But Shawn's not there anymore. Topanga doesn't take her eyes from her phone as she continues typing with one hand and gestures toward the stairs with her other hand.

"Goddamit," Cory mutters, tromping across the room. He takes the stairs two at a time, growing angrier with each step.

When he reaches his old bedroom, he is not at all surprised to find Shawn sitting on the window seat, his suitcase packed up beside him. Shawn doesn't appear to have heard him enter the room, and Cory stands in the doorway for a moment, just taking in the scene and allowing his anger to steep, growing more potent in his veins. He looks at the familiar set of Shawn's narrow shoulders, the way the breeze from the open window is ruffling Shawn's newly shorn hair, how he has one foot on the floor and the other foot on the bench beside him, poised for flight. There has never been anybody in the world that Cory's loved so much, nor been capable of being so angry at. Shawn has always pushed Cory further than has ever been comfortable, but Cory wouldn't change that for anything. And he's not about to let go of that experience now. No way in hell.

Shawn is caught off guard when Cory yanks him by the shoulder, knocks him from the seat, and tackles him to the floor.

"Ow! Jesus!" Shawn shouts. Cory straddles him, putting his full weight on Shawn's hips and uses his knees to pin Shawn's shoulders to the carpet.

"You're not leaving!" Cory yells into Shawn's face.

Shawn doesn't looks at him, keeps his eyes to the side and starts to say something but then doesn't. It's as if engaging in this fight with Cory isn't even worth it. This enrages Cory further, bringing him back to how he felt when Shawn revealed he'd thought Cory was cheating on him with Tom and saw no need to even protest it. Why does Shawn have to shut down? Why won't he fight back?

Cory digs his knees in harder, making Shawn inhale sharply through his teeth. Cory's glad to hear his pain, glad to be getting some kind of a response beyond apathy. They are going to have this out once and for all. "You're not leaving," Cory repeats.

Shawn glares up at him. "I'm not staying. I'm not going to go through that again. You do what you want, but I'm  _not_  putting myself through that again."

"What I want," Cory parrots back in distain, "What I want...What do you know about what I want? You don't have a clue."

"Oh,  _fuck you_ ," Shawn says, then bucks Cory off with surprising strength. Shawn scoots back toward the bed as Cory scrambles to regain his footing. He lunges toward Shawn again but stops as Shawn screams, "Don't touch me!"

Cory steps back, holding up his hands in a show of peace.

"Just stop," Shawn says, his voice hoarse but defiant, "Stop forcing me to do what you want. It's not going to make anything easier. I'm done, Cory. I'm done being some pinball bouncing off of everything in your life. Do what you want to do, but stop expecting me to just stick around and be some sidekick. I'm not. I'm not your fucking comic relief."

"Shawn-"

"No. Please, Cory. Stop..." Although he's trying to maintain an air of firm authority, Shawn's eyes are wild with fear and his hands are trembling. His heart must be pounding ten miles a minute. Cory feels his anger draining away, and all he wants to do is to hold Shawn and reassure him. Acting on this desire, Cory takes a step toward him, but Shawn takes a corresponding step back, putting up his arms as if to ward off an attack.

Obediently, Cory stops. He backs away and takes a seat on the cot. It has been such a long couple of days, weeks, and months. Cory can feel all of it settling heavy on his shoulders. He'd thought he had it all figured out, everything finally falling into place...but he'd never taken into account how it all must look to Shawn. What would've happened if Cory had come upstairs fifteen minutes later? Would Shawn have already been gone, lit off into the night like the teenage runaway he's always going to be in his heart? Would Cory have ever seen him again? How close have they just come to that disaster? How close is Shawn still to it?

"You get to do what you want to do, but so do I. It's only fair," Shawn says resolutely, "I do what _I_  want. You do what  _you_  want."

Cory sighs, exhausted. "You don't have any idea what I want."

"Please. You want the same thing you've always wanted."

And then the anger is back. "Yeah," Cory sneers, "What's that?"

Shawn's big mouth forms itself into the most bitter smile imaginable. "You want to be married and have your kids and have a house with a picket fence and meatloaf on the table."

Cory sits there, looking at Shawn, all of the pieces coming together. It always comes back to Shawn feeling like he lost out to Topanga. It always comes back to the belief that, in some fundamental, unchangeable way, Shawn Hunter isn't good enough. It only took one childhood to hammer that belief into his beautiful head. Cory doesn't know if the whole rest of their lifetime together will even be enough to yank it out and kill it once and for all.

"And good for you," Shawn continues, bitterness dissolving into resignation, "You're gonna get everything you want. That's great. You deserve it. But, please...Please, Cory. Stop expecting me to just hang around and watch. I can't take that again. I can't. I can't do it."

He is lucky, Cory knows this. He has always been  _too_  lucky, so much good stuff in his life that he didn't even know how to recognize it, let alone appreciate it. And now all this? First getting to be with Shawn all these months, then a job he loves, and now a baby? It's humbling. "I don't deserve any of this," Cory says softly.

"Well, you got it," Shawn grumbles, "You've always gotten everything you wanted. God sure likes just handing you stuff. Must be nice."

Cory bristles at this last little bit of self-pity. "Do you have any idea what it was like all those years, knowing I screwed up the most important thing in my life? Knowing that you were out there somewhere and I was never going to get to be with you because I was a big, dumb idiot and a coward? Do you know what it was like, staring at the years of that life I had ahead of me?"

Shawn shrugs. "Now you're gonna have your kid, so it won't be so bad. You'll live."

Cory wants to strangle him and his stupid defensiveness. But Cory calms himself and says carefully, "Shawn, you know I have to do what's best for my kid. Before I consider everything else."

"Sure," Shawn agrees, the sarcasm dropped from his voice, "I get that. I really do."

Cory's relieved to be talking to Shawn the grown-up now and not Shawn the hurt kid. "I know you do. 'Cause you love Sadie so much and you're such a good dad. I want to be as good as you are at it. But that doesn't mean I have to be miserable. What good does it do my kid if Dad's miserable all the time?"

Shawn climbs to his feet, shaking his head adamantly. "I'm not gonna be Uncle Shawn and you're not gonna fuck me on the weekends."

Cory has to stop himself from laughing at this because Shawn looks so pained as he says it. Unable to contain his amusement, though, Cory replies back, "Oh, you're definitely gonna be Uncle Shawn. And I'm definitely going to fuck you on the weekends. Weekdays too."

"What, do you think you're being cute? You think this is a joke? Fuck you, Cory. I'm not gonna be your piece on the side. I'm not gonna be your fucking secret."

"You're not gonna be either of those things. You're my best friend."

"Yeah, well, not anymore. I can't do that for you. I love you, Cory, but I can't do that again. Please stop asking me to do that to myself again."

Cory can't help himself. He stands up and forces a surprised Shawn over to the window seat because of course this is where it needs to happen. Cory sits Shawn down and kneels in front of him.

"Shawnie," he says, looking up into his furious face, "I'm not asking you to do that. I'm asking you to marry me."

Shawn could not look more confused than if Cory had just produced a dead fish and slapped him across the head with it. "What?" he asks.

"Marry me."

"What?"

Cory laughs nervously, suddenly terrified. This is so, so far from how he pictured this going, all these months since he first started contemplating the idea. "You're absolutely right," he tells Shawn, taking a step back in the conversation to help explain himself, "That is all I've ever wanted. The nice life with the house and the kids and the marriage. I'm boring as it gets. I've always been that way and, god help ya, you seem to love me anyway. But the thing is, I don't want to be married to Topanga. If I didn't spend the last ten years figuring that out, I'm a bigger idiot than even you think I am. I do wanna be married. I like stability. I like knowing I can count on something. You used to say it yourself-I was practically born to be married. But this time I want to get it right."

Shawn looks as though Cory has been rolling on the floor before him and speaking in tongues. Cory takes both of Shawn's hands into his and squeezes them tight.

"Marry me," he says, "It's more than I deserve, more than anybody should rightfully give me, but, dammit, I want it anyway."

Shawn opens his mouth wide as if a great speech is about to tumble forth but instead all he does is croak out, "Why?"

"Because I love you, you big stupid. And I want to know that you're here for me and not going anywhere. And I want you to know that I'm here for you, and I'm not going anywhere either. Ever." Cory closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, feeling like he's said a thousand words and none of them has adequately communicated what he wants. Then he opens his eyes and says evenly, "I want to be clear about what I want. I want it to be plain as day. No confusion. No misunderstandings. No assumptions about what you think I want. What I want is you. Forever. And I want a legal, binding declaration that this is it. Forever. You and me until the end of time. No one else."

And goddamn if Shawn doesn't turn into a trembling mess all over again. Cory tries to hold Shawn's hands tighter to reassure him, but Shawn yanks them away and stumbles to his feet, stepping over Cory roughly. He waves his arms frantically in the air. "What about Topanga?" he shouts.

"She's going to be the mother of my child. My partner in that but not in this. She's not that to me. She never was. Why on Earth would I try and pretend that again?"

"Shit, shit," Shawn mutters to himself, burying a hand into his hair as he thinks. Cory knows that Shawn is running through all the possible roadblocks, unable to trust Cory's declaration. "What about your kid?" he asks, practically pulling the hair out of his scalp, "You gotta do what's best for your kid. You said so."

"This is what's best."

"No, no, no, Cor. Stability. Like your parents. Your childhood. Happy, sane, married parents who stay in one spot-that's what's best."

Cory cocks his head in confusion. "I don't see how this isn't that."

"No. You and Topanga. You're, like, perfect parents. Like, you've been perfect parents in waiting your whole life."

"Well, thanks, but, I think we'll still be good parents even if we're not married to each other."

"No! No, that's insane. You're supposed to be just like your parents. You had a perfect childhood. That's what every kid's childhood should be like. Mr. and Mrs. Matthews. 2.0. That's what you guys are supposed to do."

Cory is surprised at how invested Shawn is in this notion. For all his resentment and cynicism, his romanticization of Topanga and Cory as a unit of what happy, well-adjusted people should look like has stayed strong all these years. Cory never realized how much Shawn envied their empty playacting at All-American normalcy. Of course he would, though. All he ever wanted was Cory's parents and Cory's life, and Cory and Topanga were on track to recreate it from the start.

"When did you get so conservative?" Cory teases him lightly.

"I'm not fucking joking, Cor. That's what kids are supposed to have. Two responsible parents in a nice house with a happy, predictable life. If you can give that to your kid, why the hell wouldn't you?"

Food on the table, no bills hidden in the microwave, parents to show up at school conferences, and nobody dumping you off in the care of strangers for months at a time. Those are all the things Shawn doesn't say, but Cory understands this is exactly what he's thinking about. He smiles at Shawn wryly. "So, why don't you and Anna get hitched and make it happen, then? You both want what's best for Sadie, right?"

"That's not the same thing."

"Why not?"

"You guys actually love each other."

"We do, Shawn, but not like that. Not like you and I do. Topanga and I are friends. That's all we ever should've tried to be. And partners. I think we'll be good parents. I think you're right. But one thing I know, one thing we've talked about, is that we don't want to do to our kid what Topanaga's parents did to her. It's not good for two people to pretend to be in love just for the sake of their kid, just because that's what 'normal' people do. That's bullshit. She knows that better than anybody. We've never once considered that as an option in the past twenty-four hours. She would never in a million years want to be a parent like hers were. And, even if for some reason she did, I sure as hell wouldn't go along with it. I don't ever want to be the person I was when I was married to Topanga. I don't want my kid to know me like that. I want to be the person I am with you. I want to be happy."

Shawn frowns and bores his eyes into the carpet. Cory has fantasized about asking Shawn to marry him a lot over the past eleven months. Cory imagined delight, tears, jokes...he never imagined a response like this.

Cory sighs. "Aren't three happy parents better than two unhappy parents?"

"Three?" Shawn realizes as soon as he has asked this what Cory means and scowls. "Hey, I'm not a part of that."

"Of course you are. Why on Earth wouldn't I share the best thing in my life with my kid? You think my kid should have a childhood that was as great as mine was? A big part of that was because you were there. I'm not letting my kid not have you in their life. Sorry. Marry me or don't, but you're not getting out of that."

Shawn crosses his arms and looks up at Cory as if he's finally run out of anger and fear and jealousy and all that is left is his heart. "You really want to marry me?"

"Yes," Cory smiles, "Absolutely."

Shawn sits back down on the window seat gingerly. "It doesn't really change anything, though," he says, "It's just a piece of paper, right?"

"Not to me."

"Jesus," Shawn mutters in disbelief.

"Yeah."

"Oh, god," Shawn looks up from his shaking hands, "We can really do that, can't we?"

Cory nods. "It's legal now."

"Yeah, but hardly. Where would we have to go? Massachusetts? Hawaii?"

"I was thinking Vermont, actually."

"Vermont?"

Cory shrugs. "I made a promise a long time ago I'd take you there. I'd still like to do that. You know, if you still want it. There's actually this place that seems really perfect. We could basically rent out a whole block of little cabins for all our family to stay in and have all these grounds pretty much to ourselves."

Shawn looks at him in amazement. "You've actually been thinking about this? It's not just some Hail Mary pass to save our relationship?"

"I've been thinking about it ever since I moved in with you. I just wanted to wait until some perfect time came up to ask. And, honestly, I was kind of embarrassed. I didn't want you to think I was just rushing right back to the idea of being married again."

"Isn't this rushing, though? We haven't even been together a year."

"Shawnie, we've been together forever."

Then he gets a real smile out of Shawn. It's faint, but it's there. "I always wanted to see the leaves in Vermont," Shawn says.

Cory sits down beside him on the window seat, puts an arm over Shawn's shoulders. Shawn relaxes against him. Cory can feel Shawn's heart thumping through his chest still. He kisses the side of Shawn's head and swears he can taste the relief in his skin.

"So, are you gonna marry me?" Cory asks.

"Fuck me, and I'll think about it."

Cory laughs and starts to pull Shawn toward one of the beds, but Shawn stops him. "No," Shawn says, "We can't defile this room. This place is sacred."

"Shawn. Three boys have gone through their adolescence in this room. It's been defiled many, many times."

"Ew."

"Yeah."

"Still. No. I won't be a part of that."

"Then where?"

Shawn bites his lip as he thinks. "Treehouse?"

Cory doesn't hesitate a second before he throws open the window and starts climbing out into the tree branches.

* * *

The treehouse is tinier and more cramped than Shawn remembers, and they're trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to draw attention to themselves. Somehow that makes it hotter. It feels illicit, like all Shawn's boyhood fantasies about getting to have his way with Cory with no one knowing have come true.

"Oh, god," he murmurs, pulling at the button placket of Cory's dress shirt with his teeth, urging him to hurry up with getting it off.

Cory struggles to unbutton his shirt with one hand while grabbing Shawn by the necktie with the other hand and pulling him up from his chest for a kiss. Shawn obliges him briefly, all tongue and teeth and force, before returning his attention back to getting Cory undressed. A small, white shirt button flies off in the process, pinging against the wood of the tree house wall.

"Shit," Cory complains, then forgets the button instantly as Shawn grabs Cory's cock through the fabric of his pants. Cory squeaks and Shawn shushes him.

"Don't want Feeny to hear," Shawn teases, unbuckling Cory's pants as he says this.

"Shit. I forgot about Feeny."

"Never forget about Feeny," Shawn grins, yanking Cory's dress slacks off his hips, taking his boxer shorts half with him.

"Hey," Cory says, sitting up and pushing Shawn over. He yanks his boxers back up and starts working at the buttons on Shawn's shirt, a look of hungry determination on his face. Cory wants Shawn just as bad as Shawn wants Cory.

Shawn bites his lip and makes no move to help, enjoying the amusing sight of Cory fumbling to get Shawn's shirt unbuttoned and to figure out how to un-do a necktie from the opposite side.

"Come on," Cory hisses, "Help me. Somebody's gonna come looking for us soon."

"Somebody?" Shawn asks, feigning confusion, "Like Topanga?" Even now, he can't help but be a little bit petty. Part of him likes the idea of Topanga discovering him fucking her still-husband. He doubts he'll ever fully get over his years-long resentment that she was the one who got to do that for so long.

"Yeah, or my  _parents_." Cory snaps, and that is effective motivation. Shawn scrambles to get his shirt, tie, and necktie off. He yanks his dress shoes off, throwing them one at a time across the treehouse, only wincing slightly when one of them tumbles down to the patio below. Then he pulls off his socks and pants, accidentally smacking Cory in the face when he pulls his belt out of the loops.

"Fuck," Cory whispers.

"Sorry." Shawn pauses to put a gentle kiss on Cory's red cheek and make it better, then resumes stripping as Cory struggles out of his last items of clothing.

The sight of Cory buck-naked in the treehouse, his form outlined by the golden light of the setting sun is almost too much to bear.

"God, I love you," Shawn says.

Cory smiles. "Don't ever forget it."

"I won't," Shawn vows, committing this image to memory and telling himself he will remember every detail of it always.

Then Cory's on him like a mad dog, and Shawn fights back. He kisses every bit of body he can connect with, grabs at Cory's shoulders and chest, squeezes Cory's ass like it's Shawn's to own and do with what he will. They wrestle like this for several jumbled but wonderful minutes until Shawn can't take it anymore and throws Cory up against the wall. Cory gasps and submits as Shawn begins prepping him.

And then he's in him and, holy fucking mother of god, it's incredible.

"Marry me," Cory says as Shawn thrusts in him.

"You marry me," Shawn hears himself say, thrusting again. Sweet Jesus.

"You asking?"

Shawn thrusts again and pauses to moan. His brain is on the verge of short-circuiting, but he manages to reply, in a bizarrely casual-sounding voice, "Sure."

Cory whimpers and readjusts his position slightly, just in time for Shawn's next thrust. "Why don't I ever get to do the asking with this?"

Another thrust. "You already did."

"But you haven't given me an answer. Aw, fuck. Fuck! God."

Cory comes, but Shawn's barely aware of anything at the moment aside from how good his own cock feels, and, yet, some part of his brain is continuing the conversation. "You wanna marry me?"

"Yes. You wanna marry me?"

"Yeah, sure. Why not?"

"Really? You can't give me a better answer than that?"

Shawn thrusts three times quick. "What's a better answer than yes?"

"You didn't say yes. You said 'yeah sure.'"

"Okay. Fine. Whatever. Yes." And then Shawn comes. He and Cory collapse against each other and slide down to sit, side by side, with backs against the treehouse wall. They're both panting and Cory pats Shawn's thigh with a floppy, exhausted hand.

Shawn no longer gives a shit is anyone finds them. He no longer gives a shit about anything except that he's sitting beside the love of his life, and he is happy and satiated. He puts his head on Cory's shoulder and sighs.

"That was pretty good," Cory says.

"Yeah," Shawn says, "It was all right."

Cory laughs a little, kisses the top of Shawn's head. "So, we're really doing this?"

Shawn can't bring himself to say anything for a bit. He thinks about how Cory is the sweetest, most naive person he's ever met. He's the kind of person who believes, truly believes, that anything can be fixed with a kiss or that asking someone to marry you is the perfect, endgame solution to all problems. Cory has no idea what he's getting into, asking Shawn to be legally bound to him. He's only ever thought the best of Shawn. He's only ever been a fool when it comes to him. It's time for Shawn to step in and save him, give him an out.

"You don't want to marry me," Shawn says.

"I do."

"Really, you don't know what you're getting into."

Cory scoots closer to him so that the sides of their chests are touching and Shawn can feel Cory's pulse. "Pretty sure I do."

"I'm a fuck-up."

"Jesus, Shawn, with everything you've accomplished in your life? Come on."

"I'm still a fuck-up."

"No more than anyone else."

Shawn is quiet, then says the thing he hasn't wanted to admit for all these months, all these years, really. "I'm an alcoholic."

"Yeah," Cory sighs.

"I'm sorry about last night, Cor. I'm sorry I let you down."

"That was yesterday. It's a new day now."

Shawn sits up straighter, moving himself away from Cory's gentle heartbeat. "How can you even let that go? The first chance I got, I screwed up."

"It wasn't the first chance you got. But, anyway, I'm not letting it go. I haven't forgotten about it. But I trust you. I trust that you're gonna keep working at it. And letting me help you. We're gonna keep working at it together. It's gonna get easier for you."

"What if it doesn't? What if I just keep screwing up again?"

"Then we keep working at it. We have our whole lives to work on it. That's the whole point of this, Shawnie. I'm not going anywhere. No matter what you do, you're not getting rid of me."

Shawn takes a shaky breath and allows himself to relax back toward him. He puts his head against Cory's chest. "What if I leave?"

"Then I'll kill you."

Shawn laughs, despite himself.

"I'm serious," Cory says, "No more running away. That's what I'm getting out of this: a guarantee that you don't go either."

"What if I need to run?"

Cory takes a deep breath. "Then you better come back. When you're done running, turn right around and come back home."

 _Home_. Shawn thinks about that idea. All his life he's been jealous of people who had a place to come back to, a place they could count on that stayed in one spot and didn't change or disappear, but remained a constant. Home was a kind of concept of "safe" that Shawn never had but longed for more than anything.

Isn't it funny, he thinks, that all those years of resentment and hopelessness and rootless wandering, he had a home and just didn't realize it. Cory is his home. Has been forever. Maybe it's time Shawn finally acknowledged that.

"Okay," he says, taking Cory's hand and weaving their fingers together tightly, "Let's do this."

Cory smiles but looks hesitant as he asks, "You trust me?"

"Yeah," Shawn smiles back and takes a leap of faith into the rest of their lives, "I do."


End file.
